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LECTURES 

BY 

LAURIE J. BLAKELY, Litt.B. 



COPYRIGHT. 1915. 
LAURIE J. BLAKELY. LlTT.B., 
CINCINNATI. O. 



English Literature 



Lectures 



During the 1915 Session of 
The Cedar Grove Summer School 
Under the Charge of The Sisters of Charity 
Mt. St. Joseph -on -the -Ohio. 

5" 2-7 

BY 

LAURIE J. BLAKELY, Litt. B. 



NOTE — ^The following Lectures on English Literature, delivered before the Class of 
Rhetoric, during the 1915 Session of the Summer School at Cedar Grove Academy, 
Cincinnati, under the charge and care of the Sisters of Charity. They are published 
in the form in which they were given, the majority in response to questions from the 
Members of the Class. 

That there are repetitions of Thought and Exposition in the Lectures may be 
deemed a Fault — but the repetitions came from the deep interest shown by the Class 
throughout, and no apology is made. The subjects involved were and are illustrative 
of the Four Essentials of Rhetoric, with the additional Principle, — the Basic Principle — 
that Faith is the prime Essentia! of Writing or Speaking. 



THE MOUNTEL PRESS, 
CINCINNATr. 

1915. 




©CU416373 



NOy 13 1915 



INDEX 



PAGE 

The False and the True 1 

Henry Esmond 11 

/Schools and Other Schools 21 

^Shakespeare and Milton 33 

The Impression of Sanity 47 

Characteristics of Lady MacBeth 53 

Macaulay and Carlyle 61 

Burke on Conciliation 69 

^The Nobel Prize 79 

Julius Caesar 93 

^amlet — Lycidas — the Ancient Mariner 105 

Comedy and Tragedy — Lycidas — Thirteenth Corinthians 119 

Henry V.— Falstaff— Fluellen 133 

Merchant of Venice 147 

Strength of Exposition — Dry den 161 

Fads and Isms in Modern Education . 173 

Burke and Carlyle 181 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 193 

"4leroines of Shakespeare 201 

Charity Ever an Element 215 

/Teaching the Classics 221 

The Jew in Shakespeare and in Scott 231 

vMacBeth's Soliloquies 243 

The Tragedy of Treachery 253 

Scott and Dickens 265 

'Contrasts between Claudius and MacBeth 275 

The Part of Fleance 289 

Was Hamlet Mad? 297 

The Question of a Chmax 309 

What May we Give our Pupils? 315 



THE FALSE AND THE TRUE. 




HIS question has been submitted: ''Act II; scene 2. 
In the final sohloquy will you please show 
what part of Hamlet's self portrayal is true and 
what part false?" 

It is an important question, answerable in few 
words. It is true from the beginning to the end- 



ing. But there must be a showing to that effect, 
with the showing coming from the Master of Language himself, and 
made all the more plain and convincing when the other soliloquies 
are analyzed and studied, and the meaning of Shakespeare grasped. 
It is not amiss in considering the question to take and keep in con- 
sideration the fact that while Hamlet, himself, at times says he is 
mad he was portrayed from the very beginning as the Melancholy 
Dane, and melancholy and madness are, by no means, one and the 
same. On one occasion Hamlet says his wit is diseased; the theory 
of madness might be drawn from that if it were not a fact that the 
insane — the really insane — are not admitters of their madness but 
look on themselves as sane and all others insane. 

The final soliloquy may be considered the deepest of them all. 
It is marred by his vacillating qualities, as he was marred by them ; 
but it is deep, thoughtful, descriptive and more an exposition of 
himself, as he really was, than any of them all. He has been talking 
with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern whom he rightly despised and 
thoroughly knew and valued them as they deserved to be valued. 
The players have rehearsed the tragedy, satisfactorily to him with 
one of them very possibly a tragedian worthy of the name and 
traveling players in the days of Hamlet and in the days of the author 
of Hamlet were not as the traveling companies of later days. He 
has made a deep impression on Hamlet — an impression too deep for 
him to forget or to overlook and his soliloquy shows the fact per- 
fectly — an admirable description of himself. Rosencrantz and 
Guildenstern leave and with their disappearance Hamlet comes 
back to himself and says: 

"Now I am alone. 
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I. 
Is it not monstrous that this player here, 
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 
Could force his soul so to his own conceit 
That from her working all his visage wan'd; 
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, 
A broken voice, and his whose functions suiting 



With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing 
For Hecuba. 

What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba? 

That he should weep for her? What would he do 

Had he the motive and the cue for passion 

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears 

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; 

Make mad the guilty and appal the free; 

Confound the ignorant and amaze, indeed 

The very faculties of eyes and ears. 

Yet I, 

A dull and muddy-metalled rascal, peak 

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, 

And can say nothing; no, not for a king. 

Upon whose property and most dear life 

A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? 

Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? 

Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? 

Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' the throat. 

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? 

Ha.! 

Why, I would take it; for it can not be 

But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall 

To make oppression bitter, or, ere this, 

I should have fatted all the region kites 

With this slave's offal; bloody, bawdy villain! 

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain. 

vengeance! 

Why what an ass am I! This is most brave 

That I, the son of a dear father murdered. 

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, 

Must, like a coward, unpack my heart with words, 

And fall a cursing like a very scullion. 

Fie upon't! Foh! about, my brain! I have heard 

That guilty creatures sitting at a play 

Have by the very cunning of the scene 

Been struck so to the soul that presently 

They have proclaimed their maledictions; 

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak 

With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players 

Play something like the murder of my father 

Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks; 

I'll tent him to the quick; if he but blench 

1 know my course. The spirit that I have seen 
May be the devil; and the devil hath power 
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps 
Out of my weakness and my melancholy. 

As he is very potent with such spirits, 
Abuses me to damn me; I'll have grounds 
More relative than this; the play's the thing 
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King." 



2 



What a magnificent contrast Shakespeare portrays in that! Now j 

he is alone and can commune with himself. Like unto him, indeed. j 

If he had been less given to communing with himself and more given i 

to doing things, he would have been more of a man and he knew it! ' 1 

To think that the player could so force his soul to the conceit em- j 

bodied and to be illustrated in the play, with visage waning; with i 

tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect; and, though Hamlet says | 

it not, with the fixed determination to work vengeance brings him I 

to the conclusion that he, himself, is but a rogue and peasant slave. : 

For that which the player was about to do was all for nothing. For i 

Hecuba, and what was Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba? And what | 

would that player do if he but had the motive and the cue that he , 

had for vengeance and for fulfilment of the commands of the ghost ■ 

of his father to avenge the cruel and most unnatural murder? j 

He deeply appreciates that the scene that has been enacted is j 
but a play — a representation — but the tragic lesson taught by the ^ 
effective words and accompanying carriage of the player moves him j 
to true knowledge of himself. No insane one could have so analyzed j 
his make up as Hamlet did. That analysis required thought and | 
deep thought, self -accusation, introspection and self-condemnation. i 
He asks himself if he is a coward and he knows he is not — but he 
knows, as MacBeth knew, that he was stronger in resolution than i 
in action; more given to wails than to accomplishing that which ; 
lay to his hand to do. No one has called him coward, for they knew 
that he was not a coward ; no one had plucked his beard and blown \ 
it across his face, and none would dare do so, and Hamlet knew it. 
Yet the perfection of powers of description in Shakespeare as he 
displayed them in the consummate art of the player, brought Hamlet ^ 
to an inspection of himself. Towards the last he comes more unto 
himself and reveals more knowledge of himself. He is the son of a ; 
dear father murdered; yet he is content to unpack his heart with I 
words — mere words — and fall a-cursing like a very scullion. And \ 
he calls his brain to resume its normal condition, unswayed by j 
passing emotions and unswayed by mere passion of hate. He re- 
calls that he has heard that guilty creatures, sitting at a play, have ^ 
proclaimed their maledictions and that while murder has no tongue \ 
it will speak with most miraculous organ. A word or an action on j 
the stage, taking the guilty party unaware, will bring to his face a i 
flush or will bring about some act through which guilt will be de- j 
termined. It was not a new thing in the days of Hamlet, nor is it a i 
new thing in these days but resort is often had to it, not alone in the j 
detection of criminals but in daily life — by no means uncommon in \ 
business and in social life today. ■ 

There is no insanity in his words nor in his determination. To ; 



3 



me the final soliloquy is proof positive of sanity clouded by an 
innate but, possibly, an unappreciated unwillingness to act coming 
from a postponing disposition. He knows that Claudius had slain 
his father. For him to have doubted it would have been to have 
doubted the words of the ghost of his father. But he must have 
further proof — further proof to one to whom the proof was all that 
could be adduced sufficient for him to have proceeded in his work 
of vengeance — but for his vacillation, like unto that of MacBeth 
from whom he differed not in physical courage and whom he re- 
sembled in vacillating qualities. He goes even to the extent of 
persuading himself that the ghost with whom he had walked upon 
the battlements; the ghost of his father who had told the story of 
his murder might, possibly, have been an evil spirit and to abuse 
him to damn him out of what? His insanity? Not at all — ^but 
out of his weakness, fully appreciated by him, and out of his melan- 
choly. He bolsters up, or essays to bolster up his unheld doubts of 
the verity and the veracity of the ghost by recalling the known fact 
that the evil one has power to assume a pleasing shape and so he 
must have further proof, where proof, from the expository and the 
persuasive or argumentative view point, was not wanting in any 
detail. And he shows that to be so in the very fact that he stages a 
replica of the murder of his father in order to bring from Claudius 
an involuntary, but none the less complete, confession of his guilt. 

"The play's the thing, 
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King." 

It may be noted, in passing, that metrical demands compelled 
Shakespeare to attribute a conscience to Claudius ; metrical demands 
and nothing m.ore, for Claudius was absolutely without conscience. 

There is no trace of insanity in any word of the final soliloquy; 
there is every trace of an absolutely true portrayal of himself as he 
was and as he ever had been and ever would be — clear-minded, clear- 
sighted, a builder up of thoroughly well-devised schemes to entrap 
the King against whom he wants more proof. But what does he do 
after obtaining the most convincing proof possible? If^he had done 
anything, as he had been commanded to do, urged to do and which, 
from the illustrative and rhetorical point of view, he should have 
done, his portrayal of himself in the final soliloquy of the second scene 
of the second act would have given proof that his portrayal of himself 
was not true throughout but false in part. 

That it was wholly true is shown in the scene wherein the play 
that was to catch the conscience of the conscienceless King was 
staged. Determination to act; but no action. He seats himself 
with Ophelia and describes to her the play and the players with an 



4 



understanding that brings her to the comphment that he is as good 
as a chorus. He tells her the play is called 'The Mouse Trap/' 
telling Claudius that while there is tragedy and treachery in it "Let 
the galled jade wince; it toucheth us not; our withers are un- 
wrung." Therein he also tells the King, if his powers of appre- 
hension are as great as they are to the majority of criminals, that 
there is something at hand from which he will not escape. Then 
comes the climax. With the pouring of the poison into the ear of the 
sleeper, Hamlet tells Ophelia, but in a voice the King can hear: 
''He poisons him i' the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago; 
the story is extant and writ in choice Italian ; you shall see how the 
murderer gets the love of Gonzago 's wife." 

The King rises; his conscience, or rather the knowledge of his 
guilt has been caught by the onlookers; by Hamlet — and again the 
absolute truth of the portrayal of himself in the final soliloquy finds 
strength in the subsequent conduct of the son of the murdered King 
of Denmark. 

There never was and there never could be more magnificent dis- 
play of the powers of description that there is in Hamlet from the 
beginning unto the ending. It is shown in the fact that the student 
of rhetoric, the student of history, the student of men and events, 
the student of mentality, the student of literature never tires of 
Hamlet. We may condemn him and we may, and do ask, why it is 
he is content with high resolves and inadequate action — but there 
is ever our sympathies with him due to the wonderful powers of 
description and persuasion of the great Bard of Avon. Shakespeare 
never allows his powers of description nor his powers of persuasion 
to fall where Hamlet is concerned to a degree that we might ap- 
proach a feeling of contempt for him. We never despise him; we 
pity him not alone for the great, the dreadful sufferings he has 
undergone and undergoes to the end of his life. The whole world 
sympathizes with him today and in that general sympathy there is 
the greatest possible tribute to the great tragedy of which he is the 
dominant character. 

Theatre goers who are not students in the real sense of the word 
are filled with admiration for it; students of philosophy and students 
of rhetoric, students who think and learn and profit thereby are as 
one in tribute to the wonderful tragedy; the actor is impressed by 
it; the press and the public are as one in admiration, in all of which 
there is perfection of deserved tribute. But with it all and always 
it is Hamlet, the Dane, who is the captivator and the holder! And 
our sympathies are to go out to him in far greater degree after the 
staging of the play wherein he has caught the conscience of the King 
than before that consummate bit of rhetorical art. 

5 



Some there are who imagine Hamlet is a tragedy easily under- 
stood and it may be so — but its depths are wonderful when we study 
it as it should be studied. It is not alone a drama; not alone a 
tragedy of treachery. It is a great lesson — a lesson going far beyond 
the characters of the play, whether we despise them, condemn them 
or exalt them. 

When Hamlet tells Ophelia of the plot of the play and when the 
poison is poured into the ear of the sleeping victim, that Gonzago 
might win his estate and the love of his wife — as Claudius had done 
— and Claudius rises, Hamlet's bitterness comes to him again: 
''What, frighted with false fire?'' The Queen asks: ''How fares my 
Lord?" And Polonius, ever ready to note the wishes of Claudius 
and, possibly, knowing something of the means by which he obtained 
the throne gives the command : "Give o'er the play." It was right 
that he should do so. The object of the play had been accom- 
plished — the rest was as nothing to Hamlet nor to the King who 
appreciated the fact that Hamlet — not mad Hamlet, but deep 
thinking Hamlet — ^had discovered the murderer of his father and 
that the time was ripe for action — and the pity of it is that Claudius 
acted, while Hamlet, for whom the world holds sympathy, mooned. 
His right portrayal of himself in the final soliloquy of the second 
act, finds other proof in the fact that while Hamlet wanted other 
proof of the murder of his father than the telling of the ghost, it was 
not Hamlet who brought about the killing of Claudius but Claudius 
himself. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to meet him after he had 
caught the conscience of the King. Hamlet says to him: "My 
wit's diseased; but, sir, such answer as I can make you shall com- 
mand; or rather, as you say, my mother; therefore no more, but 
to the matter; my mother, you say?" Rosencrantz answers: 
"Then thus she says: Your behavior hath struck her into amaze- 
ment and admiration . " 

Hamlet. — 

"Oh wonderful son, that can so astonish such a mother!" 

But there is a sequel at the heels of his mother's admiration for 
him — admiration, here meaning wonder, as Hamlet understands it 
and wonders only that he could astonish her. His wit is not diseased. 
He is in full command of himself; he knows what will come from 
the interview with his mother, but before going to see her he lets 
Guildenstern know that he was held in esteem only as a tool of 
Claudius and as a hypocrite. 



6 



Hamlet. — 

"Will you play upon this pipe?" 
Guildenstern. — 

"My Lord, I can not." 

Hamlet. — 

"I pray you." 
Guildenstern.— 

"Believe me, I can not." 
Hamlet. — 

"I do beseech you!" 

There could be nothing greater as an exposition of the change of 
mind and plans and of renewed determination of Hamlet. The 
truth as a description of himself in the soliloquy under consideration 
is carried out and made more perfect by his change from the melan- 
choly Dane to his biting scorn of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 

Guildenstern again insisting that he knows no touch of the pipe, 
Hamlet, righteously indignant with fullest appreciation of the 
hypocrisy around him and knowing that his every word will be re- 
ported to Claudius, bursts out with this: 'Tis as easy as lying." 
He tells them to govern the ventages with finger and thumb, give it 
breath within the mouth and it will discourse most eloquent music, 
as they have been discoursing and were distributers of most eloquent 
lying. Guildenstern takes Hamlet as being fully in earnest with 
whom there was to be. no thought of a physical combat. He over- 
looks the fact that Hamlet has charged him with lying and makes 
believe to take Hamlet at his request to play upon the pipe receiving 
this scornful answer conveying in itself challenge and defiance: 
''Why look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me; you 
would play upon me ; you would seem to know my stops ; you would 
pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would send me from my 
lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music in 
this little organ; yet you cannot make it speak. 'Sblood! Do you 
think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instru- 
ment you will — though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me." 
Therein it is shown that while Hamlet knew himself, and had per- 
fectly described himself in the soliloquy, he knew that others also 
knew him and were rating at the value he had placed upon himself. 

He goes to his mother — she is still his mother, no matter what 
wrong she may have done, and that she is his mother he never for- 
gets. But, before he goes to her he must again soliloquise — solilo- 
quising, his habit, his weakening habit, showing that his thinking 

7 



within himself was the major cause, was his loss of ground and his 
overlooking the right time of action as he, himself, said of himself 
most truly. 

Hamlet. — 

" 'Tis now the very witching hour of night, 
When churchyards yawn and hell, itself, breathes out 
Contagion to this world; now could I drink hot blood 
And do such bitter business as the day 
Would quake to look upon. Soft, now to my mother! 
Oh heart, lose not thine nature; let not ever 
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: 
Let me be cruel, not unnatural; 
I will speak daggers to her, but use none; 
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites; 
How in my words so ever she be shent. 
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!" 

Is there anything else needed to show the absolute truth of the 
character Hamlet gave to himself in that final soliloquy? He could 
drink hot blood, and he could do such bitter business as the day would 
quake to look upon, and from that braggadocio he passes to his better 
nature and his mother to whom he will be cruel but not unnatural — 
if cruelty to a mother could be anything but unnatural. While he 
is talking to his m.other there comes the ghost of his father. She 
hears Hamlet speak, but not the ghost, and there comes the ad- 
monition to Hamlet to speak to his mother. That his mind is fully 
and completely occupied by the appearance of the ghost of his father 
who tells him not to forget and that the visitation was but to whet 
his almost blunted purpose is shown in his formal question: ''How 
is it with you, lady?" and keeps his eyes fixed upon the ghost of 
his father. 

Gertrude. — 

"Alas, how is't with you? 
That you do bend your eye on vacancy 
And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse? 
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep, 
Oh, gentle son! 

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper 
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?" 

He tells her what he sees and with whom he is conversing. She 
answers that it is the very coinage of his brain; the bodyless creation 
ecstacy is very cunning in. *'Ecstacy!" He exclaims. 

"My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 
And makes as healthful music; it is not madness 
That I have uttered; bring me to the test. 
And I the matter will re-word; which madness 



8 



Would gambol from. Mother, For love of grace, 
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
That not your trespass, but my madness speak." 

He tells her in plain words, words cruel in themselves but in- 
tended only to be kind in the hope of her repentance, all which she 
has done. He has killed Polonius. He has talked with his father, 
her murdered husband, and says that Heaven hath pleased it so. 

"I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so, 
To punish me with this, and this with me, 
That I must be their scourge and minister. 
I will bestow him, and will answer well 
The death I gave him. So, again, good-night. 
I must be cruel only to be kind: 
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind." 

Claudius and Gertrude meet. The tragedy has grown so wide 
and so public that something must be done. 

The King.— 

"O Gertrude, come away! 
• The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch; 
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed 
We must, with all our majesty and skill, 
Both countenance and excuse." 

He calls Guildenstern and Rosencrantz; tells them to take with 
them some further aid and seek out Hamlet, that in his madness 
he has slain Polonius; they must speak him fair; they are to bring 
the body of Polonius into the chapel. When they go out he tells 
Gertrude they must call together their wisest friends and let them 
know both what they meant and that which had been untimely 
done. 

"Whose whisper o'er the worlds diameter. 
As level as the cannon to his blank 
Transports his poison'd shot, may miss our name, 
And hit the woundless air. — O, come away! 
My soul is full of discord and dismay!" 

And well it might be so! There was coming to Claudius full 
knowledge of the approach of discovery, and with discovery a cer- 
tainty of death and displacement from the throne of Denmark. 
Still he does not tell her of the foul way in which Hamlet's father 
had come to his death. There is neither community of thought nor 
of action between him and Gertrude, as there was between MacBeth 
and Lady MacBeth. He goes to the extent of calling the killing of 
Polonius 'This vile deed." Every means within their power that 
can be called to their aid to the end that complicity in the killing of 
Polonius may miss their names and hit the woundless air. 

9 



How was that shooting of the woundless air to be brought about? 
By treachery on the part of Claudius, of course, with the first step 
taken in the overthrow of the friendship of Laertes for Hamlet — 
not that Laertes should have maintained friendship for the one who 
had slain his father, not knowing then, as later he did, that the 
killing of himself and of his father, Polonius, came not from Hamlet 
but from Claudius, himself, and as he told in his dying moments to 
Hamlet — but let the curtain be down upon the tragedy of treachery 
for the present purposes. The wail of weeping women came from 
the death chamber of Lady MacBeth; no wail for Gertrude; none 
for MacBeth ; none for Claudius and none for Laertes. 

There came a wail of remorse from Laertes for Hamlet. There 
came a wail in her dying moment for him from Gertrude: ''My dear 
Hamlet!'- and there came a tribute from Horatio and from Fort- 
inbras for him and since the tragedy of treachery was first presented 
on the stage; from the date of its first imprint and register at the 
Stationers' in London there have come tributes to him; love for 
him; affection for him; regret for him and pity for him from all 
peoples and from all climes. Why is it so? 

The answer to the question of the portrayal of Hamlet in the 
final soliloquy of the second scene of the second act, has been ans- 
wered to the utmost of my ability. I have not studied Hamlet 
for fifty years as Dr. Hudson has; nor have I chosen to take my 
interpretation of the soliloquy under discussion from any one but 
my own study of the great master of language and of the elements 
giving it effectiveness. There is one time when pity for him, or 
admiration for him, may take a fall and that is when at the witching 
hour of night he could drink hot blood and do such things the very 
day would quake to look upon — but even then we must bear in 
mind whither he was going. He was going to his mother, to whom 
he would be cruel only to be kind and all things; the play, the 
involuntary admission of the King, corroborating the bloody tale 
of the ghost; the killing of a King that she might marry with his 
brother — all these things and his vacillations were strong upon his 
mind. So was the conversation with Rosencrant^ and Guilden- 
stern upon his mind and the knowledge of their attempt to play 
upon him as upon a pipe; the coming of Polonius with his message 
from his mother that she desired to see him — all these things were 
upon him. So was the plain and the manifest intent of Polonius 
and of them all to fool him to the top of his bent upon him — and he 
may be forgiven for that one break of braggadocio, for such it was. 
And it was but another portrayal of his character. He could do 
such things as would make the very day shiver and quake, with his 
dominant traits being deep thought and inaction. 

10 



HENRY ESMOND. 




HE questions referring to Thackeray and his Henry 
Esmond are not easily asnwered. They are, in 
fact, far reaching. They involve more than mere 
criticism of style. They involve ethics to a very 
considerable extent, and the books which might 
give information, or hints, on the subject have 



not been found. Not even his own letters throw 
any light on the subject. Neither does the introduction to Henry 
Esmond, written by his daughter, Lady Crawley, throw any light 
on the subjects involved. In fact candor compels, willingly compels, 
the behef and the actual knowledge and appreciation of the fact 
that the member of the class asking the questions has studied Henry 
Esmond with an inquiring, an analytic and an appreciative mind. 
Let us begin with the questions most easily answered among ques- 
tions not one of which can be answered without difficulty, with each 
question requiring study and serious consideration. 

The first question, therefore, would be: ''Do you take Thackeray 
to be a cynic or a satirist?" I do not take him to be a cynic at any 
time, nor under any circumstances. Thackeray was of great mind; 
he was a great observer, and a student of the facts and the characters 
coming under his powers of observation. He studied first and then 
put his thoughts in writing. There was too much of the true home 
life about him and his hearthstone, too great and too sincere affection 
between him and his children, too many evidences of a kindly feeling 
for me to class him as a cynic. A satirist he was and a pitiless 
satirist. When confronted with shams, and they were many in his 
time, he was merciless in his exposition, not alone of the shams but 
of the shammer. So it was with him when he wrote his Henry 
Esmond, with the scenes, the events, the characters all in the reign 
of the Georges, with the follies and the failings, the laxity of moral 
conduct and the clinging fast to the old traditions on the part of the 
Pretender, so to call him, giving to Thackeray the great opportunity 
of exercise of satire in depiction of the fall of the Stuarts from power, 
and from fitness to unfitness to exercise power. 

He wrote of vice and of vicious personages, but it is rightly and 
truly said of him that his depictions of vice and of the vicious ever 
portrayed both in their ugliest and their most repellant forms and 
never attractively as, unfortunately, so many of the writers of today 

11 



portray them. It is exceedingly possible that Thackeray, in Henry 
Esmond, sought also to portray the beginnings of the really repre- 
sentative government under which England has developed since the 
days of the weak and vacillating Stuarts and the stubborn and 
autocratic sovereigns of the house of Hanover. Whether that be 
so, or merely a suggestion, it is certain that the sarcasm, not the 
cynicism, of Thackeray was the cause of a great awakening in Eng- 
land, an awakening which cynicism could not have brought about, 
for a thinking people has but slight regard for the cynic, but which 
sarcasm could portray, and which Thackeray's sarcasm did portray, 
without disregard of the truth of the situation. 

''Which enters more completely into the life of the epoch depicted, 
gives the more realistic impression, Scott or Thackeray? Is there 
any reason why he was able to do this?" 

It is a pleasure to me, in the fact of the questions, so searchful 
and so difficult as they are and as I appreciate them, to be able to 
note a fault in the question. ''Is there any reason why he was able 
to do so?" To which author does the questioner refer? To Scott 
or Thackeray? The use of the personal pronoun in the form in 
which the question is put, indicates a choice as having been made 
by me in advance. But that is not of importance, save that it would 
have been more to the point if the question had suggested certain of 
the works of each. In Waverly and in Vanity Fair; in Kenil worth 
and Henry Esmond, and especially in the Virginians, the delightful 
and delighting sequel to Henry Esmond, Thackeray and Scott are 
on a complete, a perfect equality in each element necessary to the 
perfect novel, so far as perfection is attainable in the works of mortals. 
In his Ivanhoe, and to a very great extent, in his Heart of Midlothian, 
Scott falls behind Henry Esmond and falls to a greater depth when 
The Virginians is considered. Thackeray gives the more realistic 
impression and he was enabled to do so because of his greater study 
of men and of events; because he exercised the powers of observa- 
tion at all times and because he wrote of events within a compara- 
tively brief distance as to time, just as Scott did in his " Waverly; 
or 'Tis Sixty Years Since," to give the complete title of the first of 
the great series of Waverly novels. Scott wrote with the mists 
rising from Loch Lomond, or Loch Lorn before him, with the High- 
lands and their majestic snow and cloud capped peaks before him; 
the mournful tones of the pibroch were ringing in his ears, as some 
Scottish clan, or clans, returned to the Highlands with the wail of 
defeat in their hearts. The melancholy tone so frequent in the great 
novel "Rob Roy," with Rob the central figure, was ever ringing in 
his ears, and Scott, while accepting and holding office under the reign 
of the successors of the Stuarts, was, nevertheless, at heart, a lover 

12 



of the family once holding the throne of England through descent 
from Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Thackeray wrote with an environment of men and events. 
They were around Him and he seized upon and held them captive; 
Thackeray wrote in the age and during the times of the newspaper. 
Scott in the days of Blackwood's Magazine; when the newspaper 
recorded events as they were, without sensationalism and when the 
editorial utterances were received with respect. Scott took as his 
themes the days of long ago; long before his days, that is as a rule. 
Days of romance and of higher ideals; Thackeray wrote of days 
when rom^ance was fast giving way to fact and Knight errantry was a 
theme for the poet or the romancer. We know more of the days of 
the Georges and of life in England, in Germany and France, the three 
countries embracing the scenes depicted in Henry Esmond, than we 
know of the days of Ivanhoe, not because of lack of historical knowl- 
edge, but because historical knowledge of the days of Thackeray's 
incidents is more widely diffused than the days or the scenes of the 
days depicted by Scott in his great series, Waverly, excepted of 
course, because it was only ''Sixty Years Since" when the wizard 
of the North wrote it. But the question is general and not confined 
to any one or more of the works of the two great writers. ''Which 
enters more completely into the life of the epoch depicted, gives the 
more realistic impression, Scott or Thackeray?" and the reason 
is asked. I think the credit for the giving of a more realistic im- 
pression, is due to Thackeray. I have endeavored to give the rea- 
sons for my opinion, and bear it in mind that the answer goes only 
to the giving of the "more realistic impression," not extending to 
style, nor involving classical, or rhetorical expression, nor ethics. 

"How is it indicated, from time to time, that Lady Castlewood 
and not Beatrix is the true heroine of the story?" 

By the incomparable art of Thackeray. It is delicately done, 
and, possibly the very lives of the two show, each in itself, and each 
for the other, why Lady Castlewood and not Beatrix is the true 
heroine of the story. Beautiful from the beginning of her life, 
Beatrix was, ever and always, a beautiful little vixen and disturber. 
Viscount Castlewood, his wife and their little daughter Beatrix 
arrive at Castlewood House. Sad and dejected Henry Esmond, 
lonesome and as he then thought, without hope of friend or home or 
future advancement, is found by Lady Castlewood, who greets him 
kindly and affectionately, and as Esmond records in his journal: 
"To the very last hour of his life, Esmond remembered the lady as 
she then spoke to him; the rings on her fair hands, the very scent 
of her robe, the beam of her eyes lighting up with surprise and kind- 
ness, her lips blooming in a smile, the sun making a golden halo 
around her hair." 13 



Then come in Lord Castlewood and Beatrix and the journal 
records: that Lord Castlewood ''burst into a great laugh at the 
lady and her adorer, with his queer little figure, his sallow face and 
long black hair. The lady blushed and seemed to depreciate his 
ridicule by a look of appeal to her husband, for it was my Lord 
Viscount who now arrived and whom the lad knew, having once 
before seen him in his late Lord's lifetime/' 

''So, this is the little priest," says my Lord, looking down at the 
lad; "welcome, kinsman." 

"He is saying his prayers to mamma," says the little girl, who 
came to her papa's knees; and my Lord bursts out into another 
great laugh, at this, and kinsman Henry looked very silly. He in- 
vented a half dozen speeches in reply, but 'twas months afterwards 
when he thought of the adventure, as it was he had never a word in 
answer." 

"Le pauvre enfant, il n'a que nous," says the lady, looking to her 
Lord; and the boy, who understood her, though doubtless she 
thought otherwise, thanked her with all his heart for her kind 
speech. 

There is a showing of the character of Lady Castlewood and of 
the character of Beatrix in that brief sketch of the first meeting of 
Henry Esmond with her whom he ever called his "dear Mistress" 
and served and loved with sincere devotion. Lady Castlewood was 
all gentleness, womanliness, and kindness. Was Beatrix? Which 
of the two better deserved the role of heroine, true heroine, of the 
story of Henry Esmond? Is there anything in the story which would 
lead the reader to believe that Beatrix was the true heroine and not 
Lady Castlewood? — Beatrix could have been, possibly was, the 
central figure of the story, but never the heroine. There was not 
enough of true and gentle womanliness in her to make her a heroine. 
She was a disturbing element from the beginning when in her child- 
hood years, she said, as Henry Esmond kneeled in sincere gratitude 
at the feet of Lady Castlewood: "He is saying his prayers to mam- 
ma." And what was the character of Lady Castlewood? In her 
preface to the story of Henry Esmond, Madame Rachel Esmond, 
Warrington, writing from Castlewood House in Virginia, records of 
her father, Henry Esmond, that "from these little notes which 
my mother hath made, here and there in the volume in which my 
father describes his adventures in Europe, I can well understand 
the devotion with which she regarded him, a devotion so passionate 
and exclusive as to prevent her, I think, from loving any other person 
except with an inferior worship. I know that, before her, my dear 
father, did not show the love which he had for his daughter; and in 
her last and most sacred moments, this dear and tender parent 

14 



owned to me her repentance that she had not loved me enough; 
and in the most fond and beautiful words of affection and admonition 
she bade me never to leave him and to supply the place she was 
quitting." 

And Madame Warrington concludes in these consoling words: 
''With a clear conscience and heart inexpressibly thankful, I think 
I can say that I have fulfilled these dying commands, and that until 
his last hour my dearest father never had to complain that his 
daughter's love and fidelity failed him. And it is since I knew him 
entirely, for during my mother's life he never quite opened himself 
to me, since I knew the value and the splendor of that affection 
which he bestowed upon me, that I have come to understand and 
pardon what, I own, used to anger me in my mother's lifetime, her 
jealousy respecting her husband's love. 'Twas a gift so precious, 
that no wonder one who had it was for keeping it all and would part 
with none of it, even to her daughter." 

Such Lady Castlewood was, before no less than afterwards, in 
her widowhood, when she married Henry Esmond, once the little 
lad who had kneeled before her in grateful recognition for her gentle 
kindness and little Beatrix laughed because he was ''saying his 
prayers to mamma." 

Madam.e Rachel Esmond Warrington pays the just tribute of a 
loving and affectionate daughter to the high, the pure and the gentle 
qualities of her mother. Lady Castlewood in England, but in her 
widowhood marrying Esmond and emigrating to Castlewood in 
Virginia and honored and loved throughout. The story of Henry 
Esmond, written in the form of a journal, as his daughter, Madame 
Warrington says, in itself and throughout itself indicates the true 
heroine by its descriptions of the gentleness of Lady Castlewood 
and the unwomanly qualities, throughout, of Beatrix. The story 
shows the true heroine by its portrayal of the characteristics of the 
two women, one of whom, of necessity, was the heroine. Leaving 
England and settling on the Castlewood estate in Virginia, Lady 
Castlewood, becoming Madame Esmond, adapted herself to the new 
life and the new environment, loved and honored and esteemed by 
all. What of Beatrix? The story of her after life is told in Henry 
Esmond, first marrying a German nobleman and after his death 
marrying a parson, later Bishop Tusher, and living an unhappy life, 
though the world may not have known it. The lives of the two 
women, Lady Castlewood and Beatrix, indicate of themselves and 
through themselves which of the two is the true heroine and Thack- 
eray so intended it to be and made it so by his mastery of the art of 
expression. 



15 



The plot of the story, involving the death of Viscount Castle- 
wood, the manliness of Henry Esmond, his courage on the field, his 
devotion at all times and under all circumstances to high ideals of 
honor, and the subsequent marriage of the ''little lad" required one 
detail without which there would be obscurity, not on a vitally im- 
portant point, but obscurity nevertheless, and through the detail 
light is shed on the subject in the conversation between Viscount 
and Lady Castlewood in the earlier incidents of the book: ''I was 
but two years old then," says he, Viscount Castlewood, ''but take 
forty-six from ninety and how old shall I be, kinsman Harry?" 

"Thirty," says his wife with a laugh. 

"A great deal too old for you, Rachel," answers my Lord, looking 
down fondly at her. Indeed she seemed to be a girl, and was at 
that time scarce twenty years old." 

Therefore not to exceed by more than seven years, the age of 
Henry Esmond. A piece of pleasantry, but playing a part important 
in the lives of Henry Esmond and Rachel, Lady Castlewood, the 
name given to her daughter of her second marriage, Rachel Esmond 
Warrington, of Castlewood Hall, Virginia. 

Henry Esmond, from boyhood, was ever in the kindly mind and 
heart of Lady Castlewood. The injustice that had been done him; 
the unjust stain placed upon his name and on himself. In the com- 
pany of her son, Frank, and her daughter Beatrix, Lady Castle- 
v/ood went to meet and welcome Henry Esmond on his return from 
his third year at Cambridge and the journal relates that: "Miss 
Beatrix was grown so tall that Henry did not quite know whether 
he might kiss her or no; and Beatrix held back when he offered her 
the salutation, though she took it." Of the greeting of Lady Castle- 
wood, it is said that: "A something hinting at grief and secret, 
filling his soul with alarm undefinable, seemed to speak with that 
low, thrilling voice of hers and to look out of those clear, sad eyes." 
And, "as soon as his dear mistress and her children had left him to 
himself, it was with a heart overflowing with love and gratefulness 
that he flung himself down by the bedside and asked a blessing on 
those who had been kind to him." 

Later the beautiful mischief maker, Beatrix, tells him, "I don't 
think papa is very fond of mamma," and, after citing the rebuke 
which Esmond gave her the journal tells that: " Twas this, no 
doubt, that accounted for the sadness in Lady Castlewood! Such 
eyes and the plaintive vibrations of her voice! Moreover Lady 
Castlewood, a gentlewoman always, carefully refrained from telling 
Henry Esmond of the cause of her grief — but Viscount Castlewood, 
as the journal tells: 'was by no means so reserved in his cups and 
spoke his mind very freely, bidding Henry, in his coarse way and 

16 



with his blunt language, to beware of all women as cheats and jilts' 
and so on. The journal continues: 'Indeed, 'twas the fashion of 
the day; and there's not a writer of any note, with the expression of 
poor Dick Steale, that does not speak of a woman as a slave and 
scorn her as such.' Beatrix, knowing the fall to dissipation by her 
father, not only notes it but cherishes it and is not slow in telling 
the outside world of the misery of her mother and the cause of it." 

In the meantime Beatrix, notwithstanding all her wildness, her 
vanity, her frivolity found that she loved Henry Esmond and ad- 
mitted it on the day before he started for Lorraine. Her confession 
was pitiful: ''Stay, Henry," continued she, with a tone that had 
more despondency in it than she was accustomed to show. "Hear 
a last word! I do love you! I do admire you — who would not 
that had known such love as yours has been for us all?" And she 
continues until she comes to speak of her mother. Lady Castle- 
wood. "I am not good, Harry; my mother is good and gentle as an 
angel. I wonder she could have had such a child. She is weak, 
but would rather die than do a wrong. I am stronger than she, but 
would do it out of defiance," and she bids him good-bye, with the 
sneer that her mother — her own good and gentle mother is pacing 
the next room, racking her little head to know that we have been 
saying, and then: "Farewell! Farewell, brother," and gave him 
her cheek as a brotherly privilege: "Farewell! Farewell! The 
cheek was cold as marble." 

Is there anything of the heroine in Beatrix? That Lady Castle- 
wood is the true heroine of the story, through troubled times of men 
and nations, bearing her sufferings as a good and gentle woman 
would bear them distressed as only a mother could be over Beatrix, 
over the cruel treatments of neglect and dissipation her husband. 
Viscount Castlewood, had meted out to her, shows for itself and 
Thackeray's bit of gentle sarcasm comes into play: "Esmond's 
mistress showed no signs of jealousy, when he returned to the room 
where she was. She has schooled herself so as to look quite in- 
scrutably when she had a mind. Among her other feminine qualities 
she was a perfect dissembler." 

How could Thackeray so far forget himself to say that of Lady 
Castlewood, in the face of the tribute ever paid to her throughout 
the story — throughout the journal of her husband, Henry Esmond? 
How could he, after the gentle tribute paid her by her daughter, 
Madame Rachel Esmond Warrington, in her preface to the journal, 
written in the name of her husband on the plantation in Virginia, 
but written by Thackeray? And Esmond? It is written of him 
that: "He rid way from Castlewood to attempt the task he was 
bound on and stand or fall by it; in truth his state of mind was such 

17 



that he was eager for some outward excitement to counteract the 
malady he was inwardly enduring." He goes to France, presented 
to Her Majesty, the Queen, as Monsieur Simon, a merchant. The 
Queen addresses him as Monsieur le Marquis, and it was indeed, 
he who was entitled to bear the name of Castlewood and the title. 
But because of his deepest veneration, love and gratitude for Lady 
Castlewood, he refused to press his claim to the title to the end that 
her son — the son of the one who had been kind and gentle and devoted 
to him from the beginning, from the day she and Viscount Castle- 
wood met him at Castlewood and Beatrix with childish venom, in- 
herited from her father, not from her gentle mother, gave vent to 
the sneer that ''the little priest" as Castlewood had called him, ' 'was 
saying his prayers to mamma." 

There came the Pretender to Castlewood, and troubled times fol- 
lowed. The evil genius of the Stewarts prevailed, and his cause was 
lost. Of course there was a Jesuit in the final scenes as Thackeray, 
in the person of Father Holt, had him almost from the beginning. 
Equally of course, the Jesuit was a schemer against the existing 
government of the House of Hanover, endeavoring to seat the heir 
of the Stewarts on the throne. The end was coming fast. 

There came from out the gate leading to the palace, horse 
guards, with their trumpets and a company of heralds with their 
tabards. The trumpets blew, and the heralds-at-arm came forward 
and proclaimed George, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, 
France and Ireland, King, defender of the faith. And the people 
shouted, God save the King. Among the crowd shouting and 
waving their hats, I caught sight of one face, which I had known 
all my life and seen under many disguises. It was no other than 
poor Mr. Holt's who had slipped over to England to witness the tri- 
umph of the good cause; and now beheld its enemies victorious 
amidst the acclamations of the English people. The poor fellow 
had forgot to hurrah or take off his hat, until his neighbors in the 
crowd remarked his want of loyalty and cursed him for a Jesuit in 
disguise, when he ruefully recovered and began to cheer. Sure 
he was the most unlucky of men; he never played a game but he 
lost it, or engaged in a conspiracy but 'twas certain to end in defeat. 
I saw him in Flanders after this, whence he went to Rome to the 
headquarters of his order; and actually reappeared among us in 
America, very old, and busy and hopeful. I am not sure that he 
did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and attired in a 
blanket and war paint, skulk about as a missionary among the 
Indians. He lies buried in our neighboring province of Maryland 
now, with a cross over him and a mound of earth above him ; under 
which that unquiet spirit is forever at peace." 

18 



They can not forget it! Scott could not, nor could Thackeray! 
Milton could not, and Addison and Steele and Swift and the others 
of the great writers of prose and poetry could not forget that inherent 
hostility to the Catholic clergy and, in an especial degree, toward the 
Jesuits. And yet, while there is the bitterness of hostility towards 
the Church and her devoted missionaries from the days before St. 
Benedict, the Patriarch of the Western Monks, down through the 
days of St. Francis and St. Dominic and even into the present day 
when Father Damien sacrificed his life among the lepers of the 
Hawaiian Islands, and as it will be unto the end, there is ever an 
enforced, or an unconscious tribute to them. Thackeray paid the 
tribute unconsciously. ''He lies buried in our neighboring province 
of Maryland now, with a cross over him and a mound of earth above 
him,'' and it is well to note that it was in that ''neighboring province 
of Maryland," settled by Catholics under Lord Baltimore, the first 
proclamation of civil and religious liberty within the limits of the 
thirteen colonies, later forming the United States, was made and 
incorporated into the organic laws of the province. And the journal 
tells how, at Bruxells, Esmond and Lady Castlewood were married, 
and of their life in Virginia. 

"In our transatlantic country we have a season, the calmest 
most of the year, which we call the Indian Summer. I often 
say the autumn of our life resembles that happy and serene weather 
and I am thankful for its rest and sweet sunshine. Heaven hath 
blessed us with a child, which each parent loves for her resemblance 
to the other. Our diamonds are turned into ploughs and axes for 
our plantations, and into negroes, the happiest and merriest, I 
think, in all this country, and the only jewel by which my wife 
sets any store, and from which she hath never parted, is that gold 
button she took from my arm on the day she parted from me in 
prison aiid which she wore ever after, as she told me, on the tenderest 
heart in the world." 

The indication that Lady Castlewood and not Beatrix is the true 
heroine of the story do not need further discussion — at least to my 
mind they do not. 

"What place has the historical action to the main story action?" 
The main story action and the historical action are closely inter- 
woven. While that is so, the question is not easily answered, and 
I ask for leniency in the effort to answer it — the concluding question 
of five exceeding interesting questions showing beyond doubt that 
the questioner had studied the subject and, very possibly could 
give a better answer than that which I will give. 

The place which the historical action occupies with relation to the 
main story action is the place of the foundation — the main story 

19 



action being the superstructure, each necessary to the other. The 
foundation valueless without the superstructure and the super- 
structure without the foundation liable to fall at any moment and 
become mere pile of debris, notwithstanding the value of its com- 
ponent parts — the characters depicted in the story, their lives, their 
motives, their good or their bad qualities. 

Thackeray intended to depict not alone life in England, but the 
political condition environing that life among a people who were 
looking back without great respect on an era of bloodshed, the de- 
capitation of Charles I., the weakness of his successor the second 
Charles, his frivolities and the coming of the second James, losing 
his crown to William, of Orange. With it all there remained in and 
among the old time families of England, many of them at least, no 
less than among the nobility and the clansmen of Scotland an ad- 
herence to the cause of the Stewarts. The Stewarts returned to 
England in the person of the Pretender, with all the failings and the 
follies of the Stewarts ingrained in him, without that high plane of 
chivalry and honor his adherents, friends and followers had the right 
to expect in him and to demand from him. The landing in Scot- 
land, the invasion of England and, finally the battle of Culloden 
came and with it there was the march of the heralds from the gate 
of the Palace in London and the proclamation of George, by the 
''Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King and 
Defender of the Faith.'' 

That was the historical action and Thackeray presents it with a 
master hand or pen. So does he present the characters of the story 
action. The main story action and the historical action of Henry 
Esmond are one and inseparable. The historical action the founda- 
tion, the story action the great superstructure. I hope I have given 
an answer satisfactory. It is to be borne in mind that Thackeray 
might have invented and could have invented an historical action. 
In that case there could have been a differing answer. But the 
events he depicted were historical events. The characters, many of 
them, were of his own creation. 



20 



SCHOOLS AND OTHER SCHOOLS. 




HINKING over the projections made by the 
learned, and completely modernized gentleman 
with reference to subjects to be submitted by the 
pupil to the teacher, not by the teacher to the 
pupil, in following out the other modern rule of 
' 'Parents, obey your children,'' the curriculum 



of Catholic institutions and the annual cost with 
which Catholics willingly burden themselves in the maintenance of 
schools, can not fail to be of interest — and a few moments will be 
given to the subject. In Father McCormick's statistical tables, 
published in the report of the United States Commissioner of Edu- 
cation, it is shown that parochial schools are increasing at a rapid 
and a consoling rate. Between 1900 and 1910 the increase was 
thirty per cent., with an increase of 157 in number in 1913 over 1912 
and, since then, there can not be doubt that the ratio of increase has 
been maintained. As to the cost of maintaining the schools. Father 
McCormick cites that in New York, for the school year of 1918 the 
cost was $745,000 or an average of $9 per pupil. Dr. Burns, in his 
''Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in the 
United States,'' says that: 

"What is now the average cost of Catholic parish school maintenance per pupil 
throughout the country? The amount can not be stated with any degree of 
accuracy. At best no more than a probable estimate can be made at present. 
The cost appears to vary within almost as wide limits as the cost of public school 
education. There are numerous schools in which the total annual per capita cost 
of maintenance is not more than $5, while in the archdiocese of New York, as 
has been seen, it is slightly over $11. In particular schools in the large cities the 
cost runs up to even a much higher figure than this; and in some schools, too, the 
cost is considerably under $5. But only conditions that are more or less general 
need be considered, and the above figures may be taken as representing the or- 
dinary extremes. It may therefore be said that the average cost of maintenance 
per pupil, based upon enrollment, ranges from $5 to $11. The mean of the range 
is $8, and this may accordingly be taken as the most probable common average of 
the annual cost of education per capita in the parish schools the country over." 

Father McCormick states that the total expenditure for parochial 
schools in the school year of 1912-1913, was $10,886,088. It is an 
enormous sum, voluntarily raised by the Catholics of the country, 
to the end that their children may be educated on right lines — 



21 



and when it is considered that that self-imposed tax of $10,866,088, 
annually, is in addition to the enormous tax raised for public school 
purposes, the spirit of self-sacrifice is not dormant in the minds and 
souls of the Catholic citizenship — and it is not the citizenship of 
wealth, but very far from it. 

The number of pupils enrolled in the parochial sehools^up to 
the eighth grade — as I understand it, now exceeds 1,500,000. When 
it is further considered that the average per capita cost, per pupil, 
in the parochial school is $8 and the average cost per pupil in the 
public schools of the United States is $22.67, the fact of fads and 
isms and high salaries and costly school buildings, with swimming 
pools and roof gardens and play grounds, as is the case in Cincin- 
nati, becomes a self-evident proposition. 

Catholic High Schools are on the increase and to the cost, per 
pupil, in the elementary Catholic schools must be added the per 
capita cost in the high school — another burden being willingly 
borne, with the report noting the establishment of summer schools. 
In all respects, and along all right lines, the Catholics of the United 
States are doing their whole duty and will continue to do it. Father 
McCormick notes in his report, on the question of high schools, that : 
*'It is shown that the elementary school is, today, maintained with 
hardships and many sacrifices, by great number of parishes. For 
them, the organization of the high school department in equipment 
and teachers would be an impossibility if the school were to give 
courses equal, or superior, to those offered by the public high schools 
to which all children have access." 

That is true. The Catholic is not wealthy; he does not have the 
State behind him in school matters and the serious feature is that, 
in very many cities, the parent is obliged to take his child from school 
after completing the eighth grade, or send him to the public high 
school. That there are many, very many Catholics who will not 
send their children to the public high school, is evidenced by the 
fact that within the past four years Ohio has enacted stringent 
legislation on child labor, not for the benefit of the child but to 
compel the child to attend school until attaining the age of 16 and 18 
years — that is to say to compel the Catholic parent to send his 
children to the high school, to the great danger of the Faith. On the 
subject of high schools, the report of Rev. John A, Dillon, superin- 
tendent of parochial schools in the diocese of Newark, N. J., shows 
the difficulties confronting the Catholic parent. Dr. Dillon says: 

"The committee of the Catholic Educational Association (committee on the 
reform of the curriculum) seemed to feel that a change at this time would be in- 
expedient, because, unfortunately, we are almost entirely dependent on the State 
school system; and if we alone abridged the curriculum in our elementary schools 

22 



our graduates might be refused the privileges which are granted to the graduates 
of the pubHc elementary schools, thus not only handicapping our children but also 
probably bringing about a depreciation of the splendid work done in our schools. 
It is to be regretted that this dependence is mainly due to the fact that we have 
so few free Catholic high schools as a part of our diocesan school system. Their 
absence makes us dependent, much as we dislike it, even where the opinion seems 
to be general that time could be saved or at least put to better use." 

The difficulty is, however, being overcome, gradually it is true 
but certainly. And we come to the question of the curriculum of 
the parochial schools. The question was discussed in the paper 
read by Dr. Howard, of Columbus, secretary-general of the Catholic 
National Educational Association, the following being the important 
questions asked and suggestions made: 

"The curriculum, therefore, is a subject which educators will ever discuss, 
and on which the last word will never be said. American educators freely ac- 
knowledge the evils that exist today and are insistent in the demand for reform. 
Out of this ferment will come some rational plan of education, or at least more 
order than now prevails; and if this surmise be correct, then the present time is 
fraught with great importance and significance for Catholic educators. * * * 

"In dealing with the problem of the curriculum from the standpoint of Catho- 
lic educators, we are confronted with several different lines of action. 

(1) "Shall we conform to the secular system in subjects, textbooks, manage- 
ment of courses, grading and adjustment of the various departments of the system, 
with the addition of religious instruction, and Catholic philosophy? 

(2) "Shall we endeavor to arrange our work in entire independence of the 
State system? 

(3) "Shall we endeavor to make a systematic study of present conditions, 
inquire into the causes of present confusion, and endeavor to formulate the 
principles of some sound system of Christian education that will be in substantial 
accord with the reasonable features of the secular education of the day, and at the 
same time insure us a moderate and reasonable measure of independence? 

"Time does not permit a discussion of these various lines of action, and we 
pass them over with the statement that by adopting the first we face gradual 
extinction; the second is impossible for us, and the most prudent thing for us to 
do is to adopt the third plan outlined. The time has come in this country when 
we should decide whether we can have a plan of our own or whether we shall be 
content to imitate the experiments and follow the changes of secular education." 

In all the land there is none more sincerely devoted, more per- 
sistently, devoted nor more intelligently devoted to the cause of the 
Catholic school, to Catholic education and to the advance of the 
parochial and Catholic high school than Dr. Howard. He is right 
in his statement that the curriculum is a subject of the widest 
possible range, and a subject on which, possibly, the last word will 
never be uttered. It will not be within the present generation. 

Dr. Howard thoroughly well knew the discussions and the dis- 
sensions in the ranks of American educators on the question of the 
curriculum, and that the existence of evils in the curriculum was 

23 



frankly acknowledged with insistent demands made for reform and 
he thus wrote: 

*'Out of this ferment will come some rational plan of education, 
at least more order than now prevails; and if this surmise be cor- 
rect, then the present time is fraught with importance and signifi- 
cance for Catholic educators/' 

But the ancient enemy is ever on the watch. Out of the fer- 
ment there has not come, as yet, a rational plan of education. The 
thoughtful among educators not of the Catholic faith not alone saw, 
and continue to see, the evils existing in the curriculum of the 
public schools — but instead of the rational system for which Dr. 
Howard hoped and all Catholics with him, there has come the most 
ridiculously false systems and curricula possible; an upturning 
of the system; an overthrow of well-tried and approved methods 
and a banishment of the old time curriculum for the ridiculous 
suggestion that the pupil is the only one to be consulted as to that 
which he should be taught and that which he study — with the sub- 
jects suggested to him being not alone only pertaining to today, 
but not one of them bearing within it even the barest suggestion of 
moral, ethical or educational uplift. The citations made yesterday 
from the table of contents of the volume, or the papers, to be issued, 
show the fact too plainly to require discussion or proof. 

It is in the very strongest degree improbable that in the latest 
efforts of the Slossons and the Squires and the projectors of the 
latest fads, that reform will be brought about. Chicago is in arms 
against extravagances of her school system. So is Atlanta, Georgia, 
and the Memphis Commercial Appeal gives editorial space to the 
following comment on the public schools — and the Commercial 
Appeal is a high grade newspaper: 

PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION. 

The public school system of this country is claimed to be as good as any in the 
world; and no doubt it is. But that it fails to train mapy of those who sit in its 
class-rooms is apparent to any one who takes the trouble to go beyond the surface 
of things. A writer in the Philadelphia Inquirer, signing himself Robert Hildreth, 
has recently had access to the examination papers of the pupils in the public 
schools of his city, and his report on his research is surprising and interesting. 
Here are some of the answers he found transcribed by the class in civil government: 

I don't know anything about the constitution, as I was born in Kansas. 

The minority is composed of the minors. 

The spoils system: The place where spoiled things and waste are kept. The 
Board of Health has largely taken the place of this. 

An ex post facto law is one that gives officers a right to go to foreign countries 
and get criminals, dead or alive, and take them back to the place where the crime 

24 



was committed. It is a law where the crimes of the father descend to his children; 
they are punished for him. 

Taking up the papers on history he found to his astonishment that: 

Benjamin Franklin is the founder of electricity. 

George Washington was a land savory. 

Lord Raleigh was the first man to see the invisible Armada. 

Tennyson wrote 'In Memorandum.' 

Tennyson also wrote a poem called 'Grave's Energy.' 

Louis XVI. was gelatined during the French Revolution. 

Lincoln had a woman make him a suit of homespun from rails which he had 
split. They were hickory rails, hence hickory shirts. 

Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats backwards. 

That these were the papers of the very poorest students — poor in mentality 
and powers of application — is apparent at a glance. No one believes that all of 
the pupils, or any large proportion of them, are so ignorant or else so careless as the 
answers given above would indicate. But the fact that even a limited number are 
in this class is astonishing. One wonders if they knew as little in the lower grades, 
and if so, how they "got by" on other examinations. Their status here sets up a 
question as to the efficiency of the whole system under which they have been 
training. 

And this condition is not peculiar to the Philadelphia schools only. Exami- 
nation papers from almost any other city schools would show as much ignorance, 
for in all schools there are a certain number of mental sluggards who never wake 
up to the call of culture. 

But, aside from this fact, there is another assistant explanation of the con- 
fusion existing in the minds of many children, and that is the number of studies 
forced upon them and, too often, the limited time allowed them to assimilate the 
subjects. Things are made so easy by the new processes of teaching that the 
memory is not trained as were the memories of the older generations, who "dug" 
for their knowledge. As a rule school children of this day do not read aloud or 
spell as well as their grandfathers, and mothers. They study more books, but 
they do not study them as long or as accurately. 

Philadelphia is feeling a little "sore" over the publication of her children's 
examination papers, but the Quaker City can rest assured that in this particular 
she is not in a class by herself." 

Had that editorial appeared in a Catholic paper, it would have 
been written down as absolutely false, scandalous, and libelous and 
as emanating from Romish haters of education and so forth. But 
the examination papers were first printed in the Philadelphia In- 
quirer, a paper of high standing, and the Board of Education never 
denied their correctness. Moreover it is not to be believed that the 
Inquirer would have published them without inspection most 
carefully made. The Commercial Appeal reproduced the questions 
and in its comments shows that the subject was one not new to the 
Memphis paper, but that it has been thinking over the public school 
question, not alone from the financial side, but from the educational 
viewpoint. 

It is charitable in its conclusions that the answers had been given 
by students of the poorest standing, but it states a truth when it 

25 



says that the conditions in the Philadelphia public schools is not 
peculiar to that city, and that Philadelphia may console herself with 
the knowledge that there are other cities like unto her. The ques- 
tions of Dr. Howard recur: ''Shall we endeavor to make a sys- 
tematic study of present conditions, inquire into the causes of the 
present confusion, and endeavor to formulate the principles of some 
sound system of Christian education that will be in substantial 
accord with the reasonable features of the secular education of 
today and, at the same time, insure us a moderate and reasonable 
measure of independence?" 

That was the third question. The first question was as to con- 
formation to the secular system now in force, etc., and the second 
as to whether the Catholics system should be arranged in entire 
independence of the State system. There was but one question 
answerable — the third. Under adoption of the first there would be 
gradual extinction; the second presented an impossibility. But 
in the finals there is the core of it all — can we have a plan of our 
own, or shall we be content to imitate and follow the changes of 
secular education? That would be impossible for two reasons. 
First we could not follow them because they lead away from Faith. 
Second, we could not follow them for the reason that they are grow- 
ing as numerous as the leaves of the forest; as light and as easily 
moved by the wind that blows the fad into the secular curriculum, 
as the fallen forest leaf is blown by the winds from the North. 



That the reform expected by Dr. Howard, sought by him and 
hoped by all right-minded people will come we may pray and hope 
and believe. That it is an absolute necessity that it should come is a 
necessity admitted not alone by Catholic educators, but by non- 
Catholic educators in whom Faith remains and adherence to sound 
ethics is ever present and an inspiration. It is not alone in the 
elementary schools nor in the high schools and colleges that fads are 
being introduced and the fundamental principles and right methods 
of education abandoned. The Educational Review is a quarterly, 
holding a high place in and among educators, scientists, alumni of the 
great universities and clergymen. It is edited by no less a per- 
sonage than Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia 
College, New York. It is a magazine sold in foreign cities — Lon- 
don, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Rome, and it may be taken as a 
standing and a strong witness to the growth of modern educational- 
isms. 



26 



Dr. Butler gives prominence and space to an article written by 
Dr. Edward C. Hayes, in which he gravely lays it down, as an ac- 
cepted fact among modern educators, that ''Conscience is wholly a 
social product,'' and that: ''No one is born with a conscience; the 
question is whether he ever gets one and if so, what kind." He 
treats our Saviour as deriving his powers from "traits" of character, 
saying that: "One of the traits that made Christ the Saviour was 
his power to discover unrealized possibilities in man." Of the two 
factors in progress — the modern educational brand of progress — 
he cites evolution and education, saying that: "By social evolution 
there have been developed languages, religion, moral conception 
and conscience codes, sciences, mechanic arts, methods of political 
and juridical organization and all customs and institutions. Social 
evolution still goes on and shows no sign of abatement." 

So, as we find ridiculous fads and fancies projected in the ele- 
mentary and in the high schools is it matter of surprise that we find 
blatant infidelity, humanizing of our Saviour and attributing all 
things, ethical or scientific, or mechanical to evolution? Need we 
wonder or be surprised? 

In the same number of the Educational Review — December, 
1914 — there is an article by Miss Frederica Beard on "Ethical 
Standards in the High School." It is a most important subject for 
consideration. Miss Beard asks in her opening paragraph: 

"Moral education and the need of a prescribed course of ethics in the high 
school have, of late, been much discussed. With this consideration a question 
of interest presents itself — what are the ethical standards in these schools today, 
and again, what may they be in days to come? It is essential that the community 
at large, parents as well as teachers, should ask, and satisfactorily answer this 
vital question." 

And proceeds in this fashion: 

"The ethical standard of any school is determined by its constituents, es- 
pecially by those who have the greatest force. The standards of both teachers 
and pupils contribute, therefore, toward this end, but the teachers are the con- 
trolling element. A river rises no higher than its source, and the standard of 
the individual student will rise or fall according to that manifest in the whole 
institution: in the material environment, in the attitude of the teacher and in the 
general atmosphere. In this ethical relation, whether we will it or no, the school 
is a social center. What is true of a community as regards a standard of ethics, 
is just as true of a school. The community largely forms the standard, and the 
individual as a social being is, of necessity, a part of the whole group in which he 
finds himself. A smaller group, or even a single personality may, by the unusual 
strength of that personality, gradually affect the communal standard. But 
until a change is definitely reached, the previous standard of the whole is repre- 
sentative of the parts connected with it. This is true of every social group, small 
or large, and must therefore be reckoned with in the consideration of a school 
and the ethical standards of its individual students." 



27 



Quoting the words of Dr. George E. Vincent, that: "The aim 
of the High School should be to lead the individual to recombine in 
and elevate in his own personality the deepest truths and best ideals 
of the race and nation, in such a way that his conduct may be both 
wise and ethical, that is, in harmony with the best interests of society 
and his own nature,'' Miss Beard adds another evidence of the ma- 
terialistic influences in the schools. The conduct of the high school 
pupil must be wise and ethical, but not because of duty to his 
Creator. He must be wise and ethical according to his race and his 
nation, and in harmony with the best interests of society and of his 
own nature — and if ethics were to be followed according to race and 
nation, and according to the best interests of the nature of the 
high school pupil, how many codes of ethics would there be and of 
how many different forms and shapes? Then Miss Beard proceeds 
to the gathering of facts in order that the ethical standards of the 
high school pupil may be determined by asking this question, with 
the answers following it: 

What are the existing moral conditions as shown by observation and by the 
testimony of a small group of pupils? 

The following questions were sent to a score of reliable students belonging to 
schools in cities or towns scattered throughout the country from New England 
to the Mississippi. Three of these questions had reference to a standard of 
honesty and were as follows: 

1. Do you think the majority of high school students cheat in their studies? 

2. What is the most usual form of cheating? 

3. Do the majority 'bluff' — make a guess at a thing for the sake of winning? 
The testiomny from one-half of those questioned was that the majority cheat. 

The other half believe that many do so. What does this betoken as to honest 
dealing in future business and social life? 

That is a question for the supervisory powers of the public 
schools to answer. Miss Beard does not answer it — and it is a most 
far-reaching question. Avoiding an answer to her great question 
it may be believed of her that she mournfully regretted that the 
answer would be not in the least laudatory of the system. But 
she proceeds with these minor notes: 

"The most common forms of cheating are: (1) Copying from notes; (2) 
"Ponies;" (3) Prompting. Could this temptation be avoided by a change of 
method? The atmosphere of a high school must be unfortunate when it is possible 
for a student to say, 'She is a Treshie'; first year students do not cheat.' 'There 
is not then, 'asks the questioner, 'so much cheating in the eighth grade?' 'Oh, 
no;' To offset this, an interesting statement comes from a student of another 
school; he says, 'a large majority have cheated at certain times, but as they 
reach the higher classes, honesty is considered 'the thing.' ' One-third beHeve 
that the majority do not 'bluff,' two-thirds say that they do, and many of these add 
that 'bluffing is all right;' 'the teachers expect it.' Evidently, it has not been 
considered that winning by chance without a basis of knowledge, is a form of 
speculation and of shamming." 

28 



Remember that Miss Beard says her questions were scattered 
among students in cities and towns scattered from New England — 
classic New England — to the Mississippi, including, therefore, the 
great Middle West and beautiful Cincinnati. The testimony, as 
she records it, from half of the questions was that the majority of 
pupils cheat; from the other half, that many cheat. From all of 
which it is to be gathered that the great majority cheat. But is it 
surprising? Does she not lay down the words of Dr. Vincent as 
embodying the fundamental principle of ethics, producing conduct 
in the pupil in harmony with the best interests of society and his 
own nature? The kernel of the entire question is in her concluding 
words : 

"As a whole, the above testimony and observation would seem to make Dr. 
John Dewey's words strikingly true: 'There is a divorce between information 
and character, between knowledge and social action.' The ethical standards of 
high schools will be changed when the ideal is 'a trained individual capacity of 
control at work in the service of social interest and aims.' " 

FREDERICA BEARD. 

Boston, Mass. 



If it be not Pritchettism, or Slossonism, or ridiculous suggestions 
of ridiculous subjects for study by the pupil in school or college, 
it is Vincentism, or Hayesism, or, with all respect to Miss Beard, 
it is Beardism in the schools, in the system, in the methods, in the 
curricula and in the ethics. Not ethics founded on the law of God, 
but ethics based and given adhesion because, as Dr. Vincent says, 
'*of the best interests of society and his own nature," or as Miss 
Beard says: ''A trained individual capacity of control at work in 
the service of social interests and aims." In other words material- 
istic throughout, and given place and prominence in an educational 
publication of high grade, under the care and editorial control of one 
of the oldest and the wealthiest of all educational institutions in the 
country. Right and logical interpretation of the meaning of the 
code of ethics laid down by Dr. Vincent and Miss Beard, is that if 
it be to the personal advantage of the pupil to cheat at examinations, 
let the cheating be done! 

In the same number of the Educational Review — and may we 
be saved from the education it imparts and the ethics it teaches! 
— there is a eulogy of Gibbon, the author of the history of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and there is a bitter attack 
on Chauteaubriand. The writer quotes the words of Gibbon 
uttered on conclusion of his work: 



29 



"It was on the day, or rather the night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between 
the hours of eleven and twelve that I wrote the last line of the last page in a sum- 
mer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen I took several turns in a 
berceau, or covered walk of Acadias, which commands a prospect of the country, 
the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the 
silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. 
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and 
perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a 
sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my ever- 
lasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be 
the future fate of my history, the life of the historian must be short and pre- 
carious." 

Whatever we may think of Gibbon, whatever we may say of 
him or of his history — and of his history we can say it is a magnificent 
example of the mastery of language — we surely may pay to him the 
tribute of exceeding pathos. His description of the environment 
is beautiful; his sorrow over his everlasting parting from the work 
that had been his old and agreeable companion, shows that if the 
soul of Gibbon was without Faith, his heart w^as still awake to deep 
and gracious feelings. ''The last line of the last page," and his work 
was done! But we need not seek Gibbon for illustrations of effective- 
ness of expression of thought. He, like unto the controllers of the 
educational systems of today, looked only upon the present. To 
him the future was as nothing — save in the earthly regret that would 
fasten itself upon his heart in the parting from his work. 

One other quotation from the Educational Review and we will 
dismiss it. Dr. Paul Klapper contributes an article on ''Efiiciency 
in Class Instruction/' and of its nature you may judge from the 
following extract: 

"And need we stop to remind our friends in the psychological laboratories 
that not all of the benign influences of education can. be measured? With all 
our psychological apparatus we have not yet learned to measure emotion, the 
degree of pleasure in the beautiful, the exhilaration of heights or the sorrow of 
depths. How are we to measure the teachers ability to train in character, to 
inspire higher ideals of life, to stimulate enthusiasm in literature, to inculcate a 
sympathetic attitude toward nature, to give a deeper insight into social relations? 
These are the higher ends of instruction, the dynamic values of education." 

No matter in what direction we may turn in viewing the edu- 
cational systems and methods prevaihng in state schools, we are 
met with materialism; with ethics based on personal views or 
personal interests or on the interests of society. ''A sympathetic 
attitude towards nature and to give a deeper insight into social 
relations." These, in the views of Dr. Klapper and the Educational 
Review, are the ''higher ends of instruction, the dynamic value of 
education." And save us from it! 

These questions and illustrations of the trend of today can not be 



30 



otherwise than of interest and of value to you. The life of the 
teacher is not fulfilled, not rounded out, by the mere teaching of the 
Three R's, nor by the teaching of the higher branches. The knowl- 
edge that is confined to one thing is not the knowledge that works 
for the greatest results of good. And you, and each one of you, are 
enlisted in the great army of workers for good — the army in which 
that young soldier enlisted and went off to the war — greater than 
Rhodes or Askalon! 

Moreover, the fight is on — the fight for frivolity and fads against 
the fight for right and enduringly beneficial education; the fight 
for materialism and ethics based on personal hopes and aspirations 
against the fight for Faith and sound ethics. And, after the dry 
teachings of the projectors of silliness in subjects for the pupils in 
school and college, let us go back for a time and look into an old- 
time home in Scotland — from the Cotter's Saturday Night: 

"The priest-like father reads the sacred page; 
How Abram was the friend of God on high; 
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
With Amalek's ungracious progeny; 
Or how the Royal Bard did groaning lie, 
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; 
Or rap't Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire, 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre! 
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme. 
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name. 
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head! 
How His first followers .and servants sped ; 
How He who, lone in Patmos banished, 
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command! 

Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal King, 

The saint, the husband and the father prays: 

Hope 'springs eternal on exultant wing' 

That thus they all shall meet in future days. 

There ever bask in uncreated rays. 

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, 

Together hymning their Creator's praise. 

In such society, yet still more dear, 

While circling time moves in an eternal sphere! 

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; 

The younghng cottagers retire to rest; 

The parent pair their secret homage pay, 

And proffer up to Heaven their warm'st request. 

That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest. 

And decks the lily fair in fiow'ry pride, 

Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 

For them and for their little ones provide! 

But chiefly in their hearts with grace Divine preside." 



31 



Is it not beautiful? Is it not filled with Faith throughout? 
With trust in God and in His wisdom in the prayer that He would 
provide for their little ones — not for themselves, for there was no 
strain of selfishness in them, nor in either one of the parent pair, 
but for their little ones in the way that He, and not they nor their 
children, might deem best! 

Would that be tolerated in the schools of the Pritchetts, the 
Carnegies, the Slossons or the Beards? Not for one moment — 
for the ethics of the poor cotter and of his wife, were sound ethics, 
based on Divine law, proceeding from the heart of God. Would 
this be tolerated in any of their schools? And let us read this 
from Byron: 

"Ave Maria! Blessed be the hour! 
The time, the dime, the spot, where I so oft, 
Have felt that moment in its fullest power 
Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft. 
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, 
Or the faint, dying, day hymn stole aloft. 
And not a breath crept through the rosy air. 
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer!" 

Not a breath — yet the very forest leaves seemed stirred with 
prayer! But that exquisite tribute coming from the very heart of 
the poet is a tribute of Faith, a tribute sincere — not regarding the 
wild life of the great poet of description! Nor that in the schools of 
today! 

Pschycology without a soul! Materialism! Ethics based on 
personal advancement! The Strawberry Breakfast; the Servant- 
less Cottage; Hairpins; the Tallest Office Building in the World 
or the pschycological benefits derivable from Women Suffrage! 
These are the themes and the fight is on. 

Let us stand with Father Howard — make a systematic study of 
present conditions and endeavor to formulate the principles of sound 
Christian education in accord with the desirable features of secular 
education — and they are existing — and, at the same time, insure us a 
moderate and reasonable measure of independence! 

Frankly, however, I would go farther — I would ask the inde- 
pendence and freedom enjoyed by our separated brethren of Protest- 
ant Christianity, for we are citizens in the same degree they are, 
and entitled to like protection and benefits. 

It is not I alone, advising you to study systems of education as 
they exist. Father Howard advised it three years ago — and the 
systems of secular education, evidenced by the writers and the pro- 
jectors I have cited, have gone farther into the depths than when 
Father Howard gave his excellent advice. 

32 



SHAKESPEARE AND MILTON. 

HIGH English poet do you most admire for depth 
of thought, beauty of expression, and wealth of 
genius, with Shapespeare excluded?" 

The exclusion of Shakespeare left us in the 
company of the minors, not alone among the 
poets of England, but among the poets of all 
nations. In one thing it must be admitted, at 
least I am willing to admit it: England is in a class wholly alone. 
Goethe was great in all the elements of the poet. He had genius, 
talent, knowledge, the highest and the greatest facility of expression 
of thought in poetry and prose. But the world does not class him 
with Shakespeare. Nor did Goethe himself at any time fail in pay- 
ing tribute, begotten of his own greatness of thought, in bowing in 
reverence before the shrine of the great poet of the world — the bard 
of Avon. England claims Shakespeare, and England is entitled to 
the fullest concession of her claim. Stolid the English may be, 
and they are charged with stolidity. Stubborn he may be, and some 
go to the extent of ascribing hard-headedness to them. Colonizers 
they are, and overturners of customs and forms of government of 
the peoples they conquer, and when it comes to the rule of England 
over Ireland it is to be frankly admitted that it has been merciless, 
anti- Christian, and almost unforgivable. Incidentally, it is to be 
admitted that the return packages of hatred crossing from the 
Green Isle to the Shores of Albion are somewhat vigorous. But that 
is apart from the question. Considering for the moment that 
English are hard-headed and stolid, self -appreciative, and somewhat 
slow in appreciation of a joke, it is to be conceded that in literature, 
especially in poetic literature, England stands in the front rank. 
Italy gave to the world Dante, Petrarch and Tasso. In the world of 
poetry the names of Goethe, the great Goethe, he is to be called — 
and of Schiller, are pre-eminent. The French are too thoroughly 
logical to allow the genius of the poet to have full sway; but we are 
considering English literature, and the list of great poets of England 
exceeds that of any other country. Looking over lists of English 
poets there is often a conclusion in these words: ''And other English 
poets worthy of the renown they bear," or substantially those words. 
The reason is not hard to find. 

Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Dryden, Shenstone, Thomson, 
Wordsworth, Goldsmith, Shelley, Massinger, Patmore, Southey, 
Cowper, Pope, Crabbe, Prior, Felicia Hemans, Cowley, Browning 

33 




and Mrs. Browning, Hogg, Sidney, Raleigh, Marlowe, Ben Johnson, 
Tennyson, Byron, Coleridge, Akenside, Keats, Addison, Campbell, 
— and the list might be continued indefinitely. To it are to be added 
the names of the poets of England classified as ''other Enghsh 
poets," with names withheld, but whose works are not alone of genius, 
but of faith and of beauty, portraying wealth of genius and depth of 
thought. Among them are Crashaw and Thompson — whose Hound 
of Heaven will live forever, not alone because of its wealth of genius 
and beauty and forcefulness of expression, but because of its depth 
of right thought; Alice Meynall and Louise Imogene Guiney, and 
to use the phrase of the excluders: ''There are others" gifted in the 
highest and most ennobling degree of the Catholic faith. Their 
names deserve to be on the role of fame and honor among the poets 
of England, but are not placed there by the writers who see nothing, 
or very little of good, of art, or of poetry, in and among those who 
cling to the faith and its traditions and find their depth of thought 
enlarged thereby. 

Is there a comparison or a contrast between Shakespeare and 
Milton? 

Reading the works of Shakespeare we forget the author. After 
our reading we are lost in the intensity of admiration and apprecia- 
tion not alone of the tragedy or the drama that has been the subject, 
but in the majestic greatness of the author whom we have neither 
seen, not heard, nor touched during our reading. There is not the 
slightest coloring of Shakespeare in his works. He wrote for great 
purposes — the purposes of depicting the passions and the failings, 
the ennobling qualities and the baser qualities of men; for the pur- 
pose of depicting the follies, the failings, the greatness, the purity 
of life, the aspirations, the gross disregard of honor, the death for 
principle, the ambitions and the sublimity of unselfishness of men; 
the harshness and the gentleness of women; their ambitions, moving 
men of honor but of weaker character to the doing of actions from 
which their minds revolted but in which they were made to see their 
own advancement, notwithstanding the path would be strewn with 
blood and the sacred bonds of hospitality made but the opening 
gate to dishonor and to death and the loss of all that man should 
hold sacred. He wrote for purposes of contrast; to illustrate the 
folly of vacillation; of hesitation and of delay when the time or 
the event demanded action; he illustrated the man of strength and 
the man of weakness; the woman of brains and of ingenuity. He 
wrote of nations and of peoples; of governments and their rise, 
their fall and the reasons for decay. He wrote of conquest, of base 
submission, or heroic defence and death with honor; of love, of 
gentleness and of harshness ; of marriage and of faith ; of temptation 

34 



of tempting; of struggle against wrong and of weak adhesion to 
baseness: He wrote for the glory of England while giving to con- 
quered France the just tribute of honor for her heroic resistance to 
the invasion of the English. No element of mentality escaped him. 
No human passion remained unportrayed by him. No virtue of 
man or of nation but brought from him due recognition. No more 
perfect recognition of the vanity of earthly things could be found in 
any language, nor among any nations, nor in the writings of any 
poet other than Shakespeare, as portrayed in the passing of Cardinal 
Wolsey from place and power to retirement for all time. The 
staging of the scene is magnificent in its true rhetorical action. 
There is the King and Wolsey with him. Around them are the Duke 
of Suffolk, the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of 
Surrey, and others of the higher order of the nobility of England. 
The King makes plain his displeasure with the great Cardinal 
and leaves the room. Suffolk and the Lord Chamberlain, with 
others, remain and in the heart of Wolsey there is the sure knowledge 
that his hour of earthly power and control has passed, but he main- 
tains not only his dignity but his fullest composure, notwithstanding 
there is passing in bitter review in his mind his past greatness, his 
exercise of autocratic power unquestioned, his control of affairs of 
state and of the Church of England; his priestly character and the 
misuse he has made of it. It is with the past that Wolsey is con- 
cerned wholly. The future is as nothing to him. At that moment 
he has neither thought of that which fortune might have in store for 
him, nor of the accountabihty to which he would be held for his life 
conduct. 

With dignity he listens to the arraignments of his life and his 
public service made by Surrey and Norfolk and Suffolk, and at the 
last Norfolk says: 

"And now we leave you to your meditations 
How to live better. For your stubborn answer 
About giving back the great seal to us, 
The King shall know it and, no doubt, shall thank you. 
So fare you well, my little good Lord Cardinal." 

They leave the ante chamber to the apartments of the King — • 
and Wolsey is alone. The setting is perfect; the coldness of the 
King, the gibes of the nobility, their charges and their arraignments; 
their ill concealed delight shown in Norfolk's parting words, ''So 
fare you well, my little good Lord Cardinal." The courtiers, once 
thronging to audiences with Wolsey, turn their faces from him and to 
the King, and Wolsey, alone, saddened but not crushed, overcome 
but not conquered, bids farewell to all his greatness. 



35 



*'So farewell to the little good you bear me," is his first utterance, 
a perfect bit of rhetoric. His farewell was to be not only to his 
greatness but to the little things of life, and the touch of contempt 
for Norfolk and the others of the nobility once cringing before him 
and now showing their true feelings, does not mar the strength of the 
farewell not alone to the great but to the little things of life. Turning 
from the vanishing Norfolk, Wolsey turns unto himself and con- 
tinues : 

"Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness, 
This is the state of man; today he puts forth 
The tender buds of hope; tomorrow blossoms. 
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him. 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost 
And when he thinks good easy, nay full surely 
His greatness is a ripening, nips his root 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many Summers in a sea of glory. 
But far beyond my depth; my high blown pride 
At length breaks under me and now has left me 
Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye; 
I feel my heart new opened. 0, how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on prince's favors, 
There is betwixt that smile we should aspire to. 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin. 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have. 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to rise again." 

Then Cromwell enters and asks: ''How does your Grace?" 
Wolsey answers: 

"Why, well; 
Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell, 
I know myself now; and I feel within me 
A peace above all earthly dignities, 
A still and quiet conscience. The King hath cured me, 
I humbly thank his grace and from these shoulders 
Those ruined pillars, out of pity, taken 
A load would sink a navy; too much honor; 
O, 'tis a burthen, Cromwell; 'tis a burthen 
Too heavy for a man that hopes for Heaven." 

In passing judgment on men and on their works, all possible 
elements must be considered. The farewell of Wolsey to all his 
greatness shows, in the first place, the intimate knowledge Shakes- 
peare had of human nature. Wolsey was of humble origin. He 
knew and felt the sting of it always, and under all circumstances, 

36 



when brought in contact with the nobihty of England, as he was 
after his attainment of the cardinalate and his overpowering control 
of the governmental affairs of England, While his greater nature 
was bidding farewell to all his earthly greatness, and while his farewell 
to the little good that Norfolk bore him was in perfect keeping with 
all rhetorical art, there is in it a harking back to the ill feeling the 
lower classes in England felt towards the nobility. Wolsey is again 
the man of the lower classes, not a Cardinal nor a Prime Minister, 
when he returns in kind the farewell of the Duke of Norfolk to '*my 
little, my good Lord Cardinal." ''And so farewell to the little good 
you bear me" is the bitter retort of the Cardinal, who immediately 
resumes the dignity and the pathos of the occasion and bids his 
magnificent farewell to all his greatness. 

Was Wolsey sincere in his farewell? Until the coming of Crom- 
well he was undoubtedly. But when Cromwell asks: ''How does 
your grace?" Wolsey puts himself in touch with his secretary and 
falls into the depths of sarcasm, and it is impossible that Cromwell 
could misunderstand him. Now he has "a still and quiet conscience" ; 
and he "humbly thanks his grace" for removing from his shoulders 
the load of power and authority that would sink a navy. Yet he 
clung for years to the exercise of authority. With him it was the 
"Ego, et Rex meus" and the expression he used fully expresses the 
unquestionable craze for power, and for the exercise of it without 
responsibility to the King that dominated Wolsey. Great he was 
and most able, but when he comes in contact with Cromwell, his 
servant and his cecretary, and "thanks his Grace" for the removal 
of the burden, it is impossible to imagine the scene without seeing 
Wolsey adding to the words of thanks a sneer of hatred to Henry 
and of contempt for the courtiers who had worked for his dismissal 
from power. What do we understand from the scenes from Henry 
VIII.? The coldness of the King, the scorn of the nobility, from 
the sohloquy of Wolsey and from his answer to Cromwell? Every- 
thing of the vanities of this world. The rise to power and to great- 
ness of one of the people of the lower classes in a country from which 
the feudal system had not fully departed; his complete mastery of 
the King; his control of Church and State; his domination of the 
finances; his overwhelming direction of the foreign policy of Eng- 
land, no less than its internal policies. The final overturn of that 
power; the determination of the nobility and of the King, that the 
King should rule his realm and not a Cardinal ; the real beginnings 
of the so-called Reformation in England, though Henry did not 
fully appreciate the fact, though the nobility did and knew they 
would bring the King to their views — and to a grasp on the property 
of the Church. The vanity of all things earthly is not only depicted 

37 



in the farewell of Wolsey but the real coming of the newer era is 
shown in the surprise of Wolsey when he asks Cromwell the latest 
news and is told of the selection of Cranmer to be Archbishop of 
Canterbury. ''That's news, indeed/' Wolsey answers. Cromwell 
tells him of the preparations for the coronation of the Lady Anne, 
Anne Boleyn, and Wolsey tells the reasons for his downfall. 

"There was the weight that pulled me down. O Cromwell, 
The King has gone beyond me; all my glories 
In that one woman I have lost forever. 
No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors, 
Or gild again the noble troops that waited 
On my smiles." 

He bids Cromwell go from him and when his faithful servitor 
answers that while the King shall have his services, Wolsey shall 
ever have his prayers, Wolsey answers : 

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. 
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then. 
The image of his Maker hope to win by it? 
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. 
To silence envious tongues. Be just and fear not. 
Let all the ends thou aimst at be thy country's 
Thy God's and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the King; 
And prithee, lead me in; 
There take an inventory of all I have 
To the last penny; 'tis the King's my robe 
Any my integrity to Heaven is all 
I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, 
Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
I served my King, He would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 

Cromwell. — 

"Good sir, have patience." 

Wolsey. — 

"So I have. Farewell, 
The hopes of court. My hopes in heaven do dwell." 

Perfect throughout, perfect in the setting; in the great meanings 
involved; in the expressions of Wolsey at times going back to his 
early days; his quick recovery of his dignity; his soulful apprecia- 
tion of his condition ; his half concealed sneer over the kindness of 
the King in relieving him of his heavy burden, sufficient to sink a 
navy; his inquiry for news of the court and Cromwell's answer as to 
the coronation of Anne Boleyn; the installation of Cranmer and his 
disregard of the sanctity of marriage when a King is concerned; 

38 



Wolsey's appreciation of his condition and of his duties in the future 
as he shows in his last answer to Cromwell, ''Be just and fear not;" 
his final and sincere farewell to earthly things and his appreciation 
of the fact that he, a priest of the Church, had not served his God 
as he had served his King, and his placing all future hopes in Heaven. 
Perfect in all things rhetorical, and filled with the deepest meanings, 
are the words and the actions of the fallen ruler of England — ruling 
none the less though ruling in the name of the King, and without 
the full knowledge of the King, in the important elements of the 
government. Study the pages of Henry VIII. as I have culled them 
for you in all that relates to the great statesman, Cardinal Wolsey, 
and learn great lessons from them — motives and inspirations and 
history, no less than the most effective use of words and phrases as 
only the master of language could use them. 

Then follows the coronation of Anne Boleyn. While the pro- 
cession moves Griffith, gentleman usher to Queen Katherine, the 
true Queen of England, wife of Henry, tells her of the passing of the 
Cardinal to the Abbey. 

Katherine. — 

Alas, poor man. 

Griffith.— 

At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester, 

Lodged in the Abbey; where the reverend Abbot, 

With all his convent reverently received him; 

To whom he gave these words: "0 Father Abbot, 

An old man broken with the storms of State, 

Is come to lay his weary bones among ye; 

Give him a little earth for charity. 

So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness, 

Pursued him still; and three nights after this, 

About the hour of eight; which he himself 

Foretold should be his last, full of repentance, 

Continual meditations, tears and sorrows, 

He gave his honors to the world again. 

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace." 

Katherine. — 

So may he rest. His faults lie gently on him; 

and Katherine, remembering her sorrows and the carelessness with 
which Wolsey had seen the march of immorality and the overturning 
of the sacramental elements of marriage proceeds, after wishing 
Wolsey eternal rest, to criticise him most harshly, Griffith, listening 
as became him, finally gives utterance to the wonderfully expressive, 
and therefore rhetorical, answer that, ''Men's evil manners live in 
brass; their virtues we write in water," and asks if he may cite the 
virtues of Wolsey. Katherine, after showing malice in her first 



answer to Griffith, gives permission as otherwise she "would be 
mahcious." And Griffith says: 

"This Cardinal, 
Though from an humble stock undoubtedly, 
Was fashioned to much honor from his cradle. 
He was a scholar and a ripe and good one. 
Exceeding wise, fair spoken and persuading; 
Lofty and sour to them who loved him not; 
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer. 
And though he were unsatisfied in getting, 
Which was a sin, yet in bestowing, Madame, 
He was most princely, ever witness for him 
Those twins of learning that he raised in you, 
Ipswich and Oxford, one of which fell with him 
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it ; 
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous. 
So excellent in art and still so rising, 
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue. 
For then, not till then, he felt himself. 
And found the blessedness of being Httle; 
And, to add greater honors to his age. 
That man could give him, he died fearing God." 

Katherine sees through the eyes of charity, saying to Griffith : 
"Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me 
With thy religious truth and modesty. 
Now in his ashes, honor; peace be with him." 

Bring in to the class, and to me, for consideration a more perfect 
expression of a great truth than Griffith's answer to the mourning 
and insulted Katherine: 

"Noble Madame, 
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues 
We write in water." 

Consider the effectiveness with which he follows it. Griffith 
knew Katherine and her just reason for her dislike of Wolsey, her 
hatred rather, if there can be just reasons for indulging in hate. 
Telling her of the entrance of Wolsey to the Abbey and the manner 
and the sincerity of the welcome of the Father Abbot and his brethren, 
the answer is, first, a prayer for the repose of his soul. Then the 
Spaniard in Katherine breaks out with the fire of antagonism of the 
Latin for the English adding fierceness to the flame. Griffith again 
listens patiently and respectfully, and knowing Katherine's strong 
mentality, her innate Christianity and her learning, draws her at- 
tention by forceful, possibly under the rules of etiquette prevailing 
at the Court of Spain and adhered to by all Spanish courtiers, it 
might be called the commanding reply: 

"Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtuts 
We write in water." 

40 



Katherine listens for the moment and Griffith pursues his ad- 
vantage in the kindly, the Christian, and the Catholic tribute to 
Wolsey, not concealing his faults but impressively stating his virtues, 
his devotion to the cause of learning, his great qualities of wisdom 
and of persuasiveness, and brings Katherine from her pedestal of 
hate to the payment of just tribute to the dead. 

From what author have I been quoting? What author have I 
discussed? Shakespeare, as each and every one of you know as 
fully as I know him. Why do I ask the question? For the one 
reason that the great quality of Shakespeare was in the fact that his 
personality is never apparent in his works. 

Seek his personality in any one of his tragedies, his dramas, or 
his comedies, and you will not find it. Pass from the great historical 
drama of Henry VIII. to the terrific tragedy of MacBeth, to the 
Winter's Tale, to Midsummer's Night Dream, to the Tempest, to 
the story of the vacillating — not the insane — Hamlet; to The 
Merchant of Venice, to any one or to all his works, and never is the 
personality of Shakespeare apparent. You will not find it in King 
John; not in Richard the Third; nor in unhappy Richard the 
Second. But allow me to repeat and emphasize the repetition — 
when we read Shakespeare we read without the intrusion of his 
personality. Some personalities may be pleasing; yet the literary 
works of the author of the pleasing personality may not attract so 
^eatly as the works of the personality that is not so pleasing. It is 
not the personality that is wanted in writing. The most effective 
writing is the writing in which the personality of the writer is not 
always apparent. The complete sinking of personality is, possibly, 
the greatest attribute of the genius of Shakespeare. 

In the writings of Bulwer, there is not only a stiltedness not 
altogether pleasant, but which can be borne, but there is a constant 
apparition of Bulwer, himself. So there is in the writings of James 
Fenimore Cooper, not so great as that of Bulwer but sufficiently 
great to compel a wish that the author would retire and let Leather- 
stocking or Uncas depict the events or show the real intent of the 
author. 

Suggesting to one of the class that Shakespeare might be given 
to the pupils, the answer was that Shakespeare would be too difficult. 
Consider carefully where the difficulty could be found. 

Is there a pupil of your schools devoted to study of literature? 
A pupil of high aspirations? A pupil who is devoted to the study of 
events? I do not think Shakespeare would be too difficult. What 
pupil is there of average intelligence, devoted to study and am- 
bitious to rise in the ranks of the cultured, who could not under- 



41 



stand the meaning of the selections I have made from Henry VIII.? 
Possibly there might be doubt for a moment — but you would be 
there to counsel and to direct her. With the reading of the sublime 
passages from Henry VI I L, is there not to the thinking student of 
literature strong evidence that Shakespeare held fast to the Faith, 
notwithstanding the troubled times in which he lived and wrote, 
and notwithstanding the fact that men's heads sat very lightly 
on their shoulders? 

I would not give Shakespeare as a text book to all. But some 
there are, and more I hope there will be, who will come to study him 
and profit thereby, not alone in better understanding of men and 
events, but in better understanding of the right use of words and 
phrases. 

In speaking of Shakespeare, Craik says that: ''But Shakespeare 
has invented twenty styles. He has a style for every one of his 
great characters, by which that character is distinguished from 
every other as much as Pope is distinguished from Dryden, or Milton 
from Spencer." With great respect for Craik's opinion, I must 
place myself on record as completely at variance with him. The 
perfection attaching to each and every one of the characters of 
Shakespeare was not because of invention, but because Shakespeare 
inspired and directed by his wonderful wealth of genius, was true to 
nature throughout. He did not invent styles for his characters. 
He took his characters as his characters were. He was not writing 
for the applause of the multitudes. He knew nothing of the multi- 
tudes as he wrought out his theme and supplied the right characters. 
The story is that Elizabeth was so taken with the character of 
Falstaff, as Shakespeare first delineated him, that she demanded 
a comedy in which Falstaff should be the leading character. The 
Merry Wives of Windsor followed, the comedy of all his comedies 
deserving the waste basket. Possibly the story is true, but Shakes- 
peare,had a definite object in view when he depicted Falstaff as the 
boon companion of Prince Hal, and he showed the strong element 
of character in the Prince on his succession to the throne when he 
bids Falstaff from his presence and takes upon himself the attributes 
of manhood which were dormant during his early years and covered 
over during his companionship with Falstaff and his following. 

Shakespeare studied, Shakespeare was cosmopolitan. What 
country is there unnoted by him? What nation, what people, what 
institution is there he has not taken through his wealth of genius, 
and made it obedient to his depth of thought and his power of ex- 
pression? France and Spain, Italy and Germany, Scotland and 
Ireland, and in his Tempest does he not refer to an island of the 
Bahamas? Denmark is subject to his pen. Bohemia furnishes him 

42 



with themes — and through it all there is the one remarkable evidence 
of wealth of genius and depth of thought in the complete absence 
of intrusive personality. 

Verily Shakespeare was great in all things and his genius was 
world wide in its breadth and in its wealth. All the world was his. 
His genius seized upon it. His depth of thought mastered it and his 
power of expression made, and still makes, the world acquainted 
with itself. 

As to Milton, pardon me. I approach the subject of Milton 
with somewhat of fear and trembling. Kindly remember, Sisters, 
and it is possible you may regret the fact, that I am discussing 
Shakespeare and Milton from my own study of the two great 
masters. If I have quoted from authors it is because I can not 
agree with them. And you and each of you, in turn, must study 
for herself, leaving to me the sincere hope that in some things I have 
said I may have thrown a new light, or a better light, than you may 
have had before. 

When you read Shakespeare you do not find him looking over 
your shoulder or writing his name on each page of his great work. 
After reading MacBeth, impressed with the tragedy, with the weak- 
ness of MacBeth, the forcefulness of the character of Lady Mac- 
Beth ; when you have read the sickening appeal of MacBeth to his 
wife: *lf we should fail?" and her bloody answer: 

"We fail! 

But. screw your courage to the sticking point 
And we'll not fail." 

When you read the coming of Lady MacBeth into the room where 
the Doctor and one of the gentlemen of the Court are present; 
when you read the lines telling of her stricken and her unrepentant 
conscience : 

"Out damned spot! I say, one; two; why then 'tis time to do it, 
Hell is murky. Fie, my Lord, a soldier and afeared? 
What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to 

account? Yet who would have thought the old man had so 

much blood in him?" 

And these lines: 

"Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia 
Will dot sweeten the little hand: Oh! Oh! Oh! 

When you read these lines you will see only, and only appreciate the 
mad ambition of Lady MacBeth urging her vacillating husband — 
vacillating between honor and ambition — to the killing of King 
Duncan; only the wailings of her conscience as in her wanderings 
while asleep, she sees the stain of blood upon her httle hand and not 

43 



all the perfumes of Arabia can obliterate it. Is it really her con- 
science? Is it not remorse rather than a stricken conscience? Is it 
not rather the fear of discovery that brings her to the seeing of the 
blood spots upon her hand — blood spots which not all the perfumes 
of Arabia could wash away? You may be studying the real meaning 
of Shakespeare but Shakespeare's personality does not intrude itself 
upon you in aid of your efforts at interpretation. You see the 
events from the coming of Duncan to the castle of MacBeth to the 
death of Lady MacBeth and the fall of her weak husband, a murderer 
of his guest at the dictation of his wife who urges him to the deed 
because of the certainty of succession of MacBeth to the throne, and, 
therefore, the impossibility of being called to account. You see 
Birnamwood coming to Dunsinane; you see the prophecy of the 
witches fulfilled, MacDuff should not be King but his children 
should. MacBeth was -to be King, and the witches cauldron 
grew in its efforts to completion of the great tragedy. Is it so with 
Milton? 

J Is there a sinking of the personality of Milton in his Paradise 
Lost? Shakespeare stood by his genius, Milton by his strong in- 
dividuality. Shakespeare spreads his magnificent banquet before 
his guests and leaves them to its fullest enjoyment. Milton's per- 
sonality is ever with you. Reading Paradise Lost we are reading 
Milton. Shakespeare wrote as his wealth of genius called to him 
from his depth of thought and his beauty of expression completed the 
work, and Shakespeare disappeared. He knew his range and kept 
within it. Milton knew his range of thought as a poet undoubtedly, 
but took unto himself and hugged the vain belief that he was an 
historian and an educator. If he had but kept himself within the 
ranks of great poets, and utilized his great power of verse to inculcate 
history and education, he might, as he could, have excelled. Shakes- 
peare had the greatest possible powers of imagination. Milton 
lacked imagination save in the wrong direction as to powers he be- 
lieved he possessed, but did not. His Paradise Lost is a great 
work, the one really great production of Milton. He was a student 
of books. Shakespeare was a student and an observer of events. 
Milton was of England, while Shakespeare was of the whole world. 
Milton is classical throughout, Shakespeare is the student of the 
world, its idioms, its customs, its habits, its inspirations, its lessons, 
and its teachings throughout. In our readings of Milton we see 
Milton. We think of his blindness, of the devotion of his daughter; 
of her aid to him in his affliction, and we see his rigidity of Puritanic 
Faith throughout, possibly so dominant in him that he found it 
impossible to repress it and, for that reason, his personality is always 
before his readers. 



44 



Shakespeare is ever on a plane with his readers. Milton raises 
himself upon a pedestal. Milton was great. Shakespeare was 
greater, and is greater. There is no poet like unto him in all the wide 
range of English literature. 

The question: "Which English poet do you most admire for 
depth of thought, beauty of expression, and wealth of genius, ex- 
cluding Shakespeare?'' must be answered finally in this way: 
Apart from some of his works, unfit for reading, there is no poet 
whom I admire for depth of thought, wealth of genius, and beauty of 
expression, than George Gordon Lord Byron. The pity of it is 
that he did not always use his depth of thought, his wealth of genius 
and his beauty of expression in right ways. 



45 



THE IMPRESSION OF SANITY. 



NOTHER question is: ''Discuss Hamlet's direc- 
tions to the players. Do you think that the poet 
't-Jf j I here entrusts part of his professional creed to 
J — i: lf\ Hamlet? In view of this, what impression does 
the poet intend to convey as to the sanity of 
the Prince?" 

The instructions to the players and Hamlet's 
most earnest request to Horatio, must be considered together in the 
answer to the question. First, the instructions to the players: 

Scene II. A Hall in the Castle. 
Hamlet Enter Hamlet and Players. 

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the 
tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town- 
crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but 
use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind 
of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. 
0, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion 
to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part 
are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such 
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagan'; it out-herods Herod: pray you, 
avoid it. 

First Play.— 

I v/arrant your honor. 

Hamlet. — 

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the 
action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you 
o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose 
of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, 
the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, 
and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, 
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, can not but make the judi- 
cious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a 
whole theatre of others. 0, there be players that I have seen play, and heard 
others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the 
accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted 
and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men 
and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 

First Play.— 

I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir. 
Hamlet. — 

O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more 
than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set 

47 



on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too ; though, in the mean time, some 
necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous, and shows 
a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. {Exeunt 
players,) 

Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 
How now, my lord! will the King hear this piece of work? 
Polonius. — 

And the Queen too, and that presently. 
Hamlet. — 

Bid the players make haste. (Exit.) 
Polonius. — 

Will you two help to hasten them? 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. — 
We will, my Lord. 

(Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.) 

Hamlet. — 
What ho! Horatio! 

Then follows the request to Horatio — one of the most perfectly 
expressed, possible: 

Enter Horatio. 

Horatio. — 

Here, sweet lord, at your service. 
Hamlet. — 

"Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man 
As e'er my conversation coped withal. 

Horatio. — 
"O, my dear lord, — 
Hamlet. — 

"Nay, do not think I flatter; 
For what advancement may I hope from thee 
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits. 
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd? 
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp. 
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? 
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice 
And could of men distinguish, her election 
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been 
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing, 
A man that fortune's buffets and lewards 
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those 
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled. 
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger 
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man 
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him 



48 



In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart. 
As I do thee. — Something too much of this. — 
There is a play tonight before the king; 
One scene of it comes near the circumstance 
Which I have told thee of my father's death: 
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, 
Even with the very comment of thy soul 
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt 
Do not itself unkennel in one speech. 
It is a damned ghost that we have seen, 
And my imaginations are as foul 
As Vulcan's smithy. Give him heedful note; 
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face. 
And after we will both our judgments join 
In censure of his seeming. 

Horatio. — 

"Well, my lord: 
If he steal aught whilst this play is playing. 
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft." 

Hamlet. — 

"They are coming to the play; I must be idle: 
Get you a place." 

r 

There can be small doubt, if any, of the intention of Shakespeare 
to entrust part of his professional career to Hamlet. He had the 
tang of the profession in him; he had attended rehearsals of the 
actors taking part in his tragedies, dramas and comedies. He had 
drilled them; instructed them; berated them, and he had exacted 
of them an appreciation of his intents and purposes in his great 
works to the end that they might rise as nearly as possible to the 
heights he had climbed, and rightly portray to the audiences the 
great lessons to be conveyed. The directions Hamlet gives to the 
players were undoubtedly the instructions Shakespeare, himself, 
often had been forced to give, even to trained and skilled actors, 
tragedians, comedians or dramatists. 

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trip- 
pingly on the tongue; nor do not saw the air too much with your 
hand, but thus, all gently." Have you ever taken part in commence- 
ment exercises? Were you drilled in rehearsals and have you 
drilled others in rehearsals? Have you ever attended a rehearsal of 
a concert or chorus? The instructions Hamlet gives the players 
were instructions given by stage directors, concert masters and con- 
trollers of ceremonies from the beginning. In the case of the players 
under the direction of Hamlet it may be inferred that they were not 
tragedians but comedians — traveling vaudevillers, so to call them. 
Hamlet had instructed the player to speak the speech as he had 
spoken it — trippingly on the tongue and all was ''to be used gently" 



49 



and why? Because Hamlet had a great purpose in view and if there 
had been too much sawing of the air and too much mouthing of the 
words, the attention of Claudius would not have been fixed upon 
the player who, drilled up to right voice and action recited his line 
to the admiration of Hamlet, himself. 

The actors were inclined to split the ears of the groundlings; to 
tear a passion to tatters, with Claudius and Gertrude and the entire 
Court laughing over the exhibition and with the climax sought by 
Hamlet avoided. ''Suit the action to the word and the word to the 
action/' says Hamlet, and therein Shakespeare utters another sug- 
gestion of wise conduct not alone on the stage but in daily life and 
action. The end of playing is to hold the mirror up to Nature — in 
this instance the mirror in which would be reflected the crime of 
Claudius and confirmation of the story of the Ghost. The principal 
among the players tells Hamlet that he hopes the players have 
reformed their errors indifferently well. 

''Reform it altogether," is the instruction not alone of Hamlet 
but of all stage directors understanding their business with this to 
be especially observed when the play was staged before Claudius 
and Gertrude and the Court — let those that play the clowns speak 
no more than is set for them for they are likely to make the audience 
laugh when some necessary element of the play is to be considered. 
That is to say, it must not be tragedy altogether; that would, of 
itself, bring suspicion to the mind of Claudius who ever kept a watch- 
ful eye on Hamlet. Yet there must not be too much of levity; 
enough of it to quiet any suspicions Claudius might have and enough 
to catch and hold the attention of the groundlings to whom tragedy 
on the stage would be but a waste of time in observing something 
of which they could not catch the meaning. Throughout the direc- 
tions to the players there is wisdom, caution, precaution and de- 
termination and most admirably are the instructions given, coming, 
as they really did, from the Great Master of Language and of 
tragedy. 

In *one part of the directions there is a portrayal of Hamlet, 
himself, and undoubtedly intended to be so by Shakespeare : 

" . . . . Use all gently; for in the very torrent and tempest of 
passion you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it 
smoothness." That had been Hamlet's program. He rose to the 
very tempest and torrent of passion in his soliloquies and in his 
arraignment of Gertrude — ^but that arraignment was part assumed 
for he must be cruel to her, that is, bitter to her in his arraignment, 
only that he might be kind in his hope of bringing her back to her 
better self. 



50 



''What impression does the poet want to convey of the sanity of 
the Prince?'' The impression of Shakespeare speaks silently, but 
effectively, of itself and for itself. Hamlet was not insane. He was 
melancholy and moody, temporizing and a delayer. If he had been 
insane he would have acted in the beginning, violently and bloodily. 
There would have been no cruelty because of kindness for his mother. 
The directions given to the players, given with always the tang of 
the stage in them and with Shakespeare putting into Hamlet's 
mouth the directions he had, himself, often given to players under 
his control and direction, show no sign of insanity in Hamlet; they 
are concise and complete and, so far as Hamlet is concerned, based 
not on practical knowledge of the stage, but on his determination to 
"catch the conscience of the King" — as he most surely did. 

Passing from the directions of Hamlet to the players, we come to 
the true heart Hamlet held towards Horatio. He can hope for no 
advancement from Horatio — from one that no revenue had to feed 
and clothe him — no, let the candid tongue lick absurd pomp and 
crook the hinges of the knee that thrift might follow fawning. Since 
his dear heart was mistress of itself he had held Horatio fast. Ho- 
ratio was not passion's slave and Hamlet wore him in his heart as 
he, so pathetically, tells him. 

But there was work at hand — and again comes to the front the 
timorous soul of Hamlet. He was to watch Claudius. Hamlet 
doubted his own complete ability in that regard. 

"Observe mine uncle! If his own occulted guilt 
Do not itself unkennel in one speech 
It is a damned ghost that we have seen, 
And my imaginations are as foul 
As Vulcan's smithy. Give him heedful note; 
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, 
And after we will both our judgments join 
In censure of his seeming." 

Horatio. — 

"Well, my lord; 
If he steal ought the while this play is playing, 
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft." 

Hamlet. — 

"They are coming to the play; I must go hence. 
Get you a place." 

He has not told Horatio all the currents of the coming tragedy. 
The play has one scene that comes near the circumstances of his 
father's death and when that act is afoot ''Even with the very com- 
ment of thy soul, observe mine uncle!" 



51 



Doubt remains in his soul; the ghost may have been one come 
to lead him into wrong doing, even to murder. But he has the 
players; the plot is perfect; he has drilled the players not to per- 
fection of their art, but to perfection of portrayal of the circumstances 
attending his father's death and he calls on Horatio to aid him in 
his watch. 

There is nothing of insanity intended by Shakespeare in the 
directions to the players. There is absolutely no trace of insanity 
in his manly conversation with Horatio. Shakespeare so intended 
it. He was not portraying one who was insane but one who suffered 
from the beginning through the treachery of others with the suffering 
increased because of his own lack of action. He was the Melancholy 
Dane — never the insane Hamlet. 



52 



CHARACTERISTICS OF LADY MacBETH. 



AS Lady MacBeth an unfeeling, selfishly ambitious 
woman, or was she ambitious for her husband's 
sake?" 

I say it with regret, but it seems too plain 
for contradiction that Lady MacBeth was an un- 
feeling, selfishly ambitious woman and that her 
husband, weaker by far than Lady MacBeth, 
was but the means to the end through which her ambitions would 
be gratified. With her, the end justified the means. She was as 
coldly cruel in her methods as was Claudius, King of Denmark, and 
it was not until her weak husband had stained his hands with the 
blood of his guest; not until Banquo's ghost would not down but 
haunted her husband, and not until she came to her later years and 
her dream, that conscience awoke. And of what nature was the 
awakening? To righting of the wrongs she had done? Not at all! 
The righting of the wrongs she had committed was an impossibility, 
and she knew it. There was a stain upon her hands, her little hands, 
and not all the perfumes of Araby could wipe it out. She asks: 
''What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to 
account? yet who would have thought the old man to have had 
so much blood in him?" And towards the last she says: 'To bed, 
to bed, there's knocking at the gate! Come, come, come! Give 
me your hand! What's done can not be undone!" In that one 
scene there is enough to show conclusively the unquestioned selfish- 
ness, the mad ambition of Lady MacBeth. Even in her raving her 
mind recurs to the weakness of her husband. All that has been 
done, bloody though it was, can not be undone. So, wherefore 
trouble over it? Duncan is slain and MacBeth holds his throne; 
Banquo is slain and his son driven from their native land, but what 
does it matter? Gertrude, of Denmark, after drinking the poisoned 
cup, showed signs of sorrow in her appeals to her son Hamlet. Lady 
MacBeth shows signs of nothing but indifference to that which 
had been done and which had been done at her instigation that she 
might rule as Queen in Scotland. 

In scene V, Lady MacBeth enters reading a letter from her 
husband, in which he tells her of the witch's prediction in their 
salutation to him; "Hail, King that shall be!" There is nothing 
in that letter, there is absolutely nothing in the character of MacBeth 

53 




from which we could draw the inference that bloody means would 
be necessary to bring him to the throne of Scotland. With Lady 
MacBeth, however, it is altogether otherwise as she says: 

"Glamis thou art and Cawdor; and shalt be 
What thou art promised; yet I do fear thy nature; 
It is too full of the milk of human kindness 
To catch the nearest way; thou wouldst be great; 
Art not without ambition but without 
The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly 
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false 
And yet wouldst wrongly win; thou'ldst have great Glamis 
That which cries, 'Thus, thou must do if thou have it; 
And that which rather thou dost fear to do 
Thou wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither 
That I may pour my spirit in thine ear; 
And chastise with the valor of my tongue 
All that impedes thee from the golden round, 
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
To have thee crowned withal." 

She appreciates fully the fact that MacBeth, of himself, would 
do nothing bloody to obtain the crown. He tells her of the pro- 
phecy of the witch apparently as an item of news a husband would 
tell his wife, as any husband would if good fortune were promised 
even though it were but a thin and unstable promise. She says 
in speaking to him though he was absent that he shall be that which 
was promised him. Yet she fears the overflow of milk of human 
kindness in his heart preventing him from doing that which she 
would do, that is: 'To catch the nearest way," no matter what that 
way might be, whether through treachery or blood. To MacBeth 
the thing that he desires highest must be had holily, but not with 
her! And she bids him ''Hie thee hither", and for what purpose? 
That she might pour her spirits in his ear and with the valor of her 
tongue kill everything that might impede him from the round. 
MacBeth was not so weak nor so vacillating as Hamlet was. He was 
a soldier and a leader, a fighter and ambitious but his very nature 
would shrink and did shrink from murder of his guest. When the 
messenger enters telling her that the King would be her guest that 
night, she says: "The raven himself is hoarse, that croaks the fatal 
entrance of Duncan under my battlements." The battlements were 
hers within which to do that which she might deem best to do, without 
regard to the protests or the wishes of her husband. She was not ambi- 
tious for her husband . She was ambitious for herself. She was a selfish 
woman regarding only the end and taking no consideration of the 



54 



means. Even this early in the tragedy she shows her unfeeling and 
selfish ambition. Before the coming of MacBeth she continues her 
soliloquy : 

"Come you spirits! 
That tend on mortal thoughts; unsex me here, 
And fill me from the crown to the toe top full 
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood; 
Stop up the access and passage to remorse 
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between 
The effect and it. Come thick night 
And pall thee in the densest smoke of Hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark. 
To cry "Hold! Hold! " 

Can you imagine a woman saying that? It was not said in the 
wild ecstacy of desire for royal honors. It was not said in a mere 
spirit of bravado. In her talk to her husband, rather her talk to her 
husband in his absence, she draws a contrast between herself and 
him. She is to be the prime mover in attaining the end without 
reference to the means. He is the secondary consideration through- 
out. That she was determinedly, emphatically in earnest and would 
be persistently in earnest is not alone to be taken from her soliloquy 
when she asks that thick night come and pall her in the densest 
smoke of Hell, that her keen knife see not the wound it makes nor 
Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to stay her hand. 
That she was in deadly earnest in her soliloquy of blood is all too 
plainly shown in the unfeeling, the cruel, and the murderous com- 
mands she gives her halting husband, accomplishing the murder of her 
king and her guest, Duncan, the friend and benefactor of her hus- 
band. 

Notwithstanding her determined intent, she does not impart 
it to her husband when he enters and she salutes him: 

"Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor! 
Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter! 
Thy letters have transported me beyond 
This ignorant present and I feel now 
The future in the instant." 

Does MacBeth understand her? Evidently he takes her greet- 
ing as he took and told to her in his letter of the prediction of the 
witch that he should be King. His answer to her is: ''My dearest 
love, Duncan comes here tonight." And she asks him, ''And when 
goes hence?" There was the very deepest possible meaning in that 
question. She must try MacBeth; must sound him; must find 

55 



whether he took the witch's prophecy in earnest and, if so, whether 
he was ready to do that by knife and blood that would remove 
Duncan from life and from crown. 

MacBeth answers her that Duncan will go hence tomorrow, as 
he purposes. That answer shows the feeling of MacBeth. Duncan 
was King and his guest. He had honored MacBeth with his presence 
as guest and visitor, and not the remotest thought of anything but 
honor, reverence and hospitality was in his heart. With her it was 
all otherwise. When MacBeth tells her naturally, answering her 
question as one of ordinary intent and purpose, that Duncan would 
go hence on the morrow, she reveals herself to him and in the revela- 
tion plainly and convincingly shows her cold-hearted selfishness; 
her own ambition and her determination that, not regarding what 
MacBeth might wish, or plead, or do, the leadership was hers and her 
husband completely subordinate to her will. That simple, plain, 
straightforward and natural answer that Duncan would go hence 
tomorrow cleanses MacBeth from all intent of treachery or violation 
of the rules of hospitality. Duncan had honored them with a visit; 
he was the King; his duties were to the entire nation and he had 
arranged that on the morrow he would leave. Listen to her answer: 

"Oh, never 
Shall sun that morrow see! 
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men 
May read strange matters. To beguile the time. 
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye. 
Your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent flower, 
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming 
Must be provided for; and you shall put 
This night's great business into my dispatch; 
Which shall to all our nights and days to come 
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom." 

MacBeth.— 

"We will speak further." 

Lady MacBeth.— 

"Only look up clear; 
To alter favor ever is to fear; 
Leave all the rest to me." 

It is not to be taken from the answer of MacBeth, ''We will 
speak further," that he meant to convey to Lady MacBeth that he 
would unite with her in doing that which she had devised before his 
coming. 

Undoubtedly he had caught some of the spirit of some of her 
intent and purposes but it is apparent that while that was so, his 



56 



soul was shrinking from the thought of committing the barbarous 
crime against his King and hospitahty. The sincerity of his answer 
that the King would leave the castle ''Tomorrow as he purposes/^ 
is not marred by the fact that on the morning after the murder of 
Duncan had been committed, when Lennox asks him: ''Goes the 
King hence today?" He answers, "He does. He did appoint so." 
In his criticism of MacBeth, Dr. Hudson takes up the two answers 
as "Highly significant notes of character." In the answer to his 
wife, Dr. Hudson holds, that MacBeth intended defeating the 
King's purpose by killing him; while in the answer to Lennox, he 
has made it impossible for the King's appointment to be kept. I do 
not agree with him, highly though I appreciate his work and respect 
him for his general impartial tenor. MacBeth's answer to his wife 
was natural and in the ordinary course. In the answer to Lennox 
on the morning after the murder of Duncan, the answer was also 
natural, coming from one who had listened to his wife's commands 
and had been brought to obey them at the sacrifice of honor, of 
allegiance, and of hospitality. The time had not yet come for news 
of the murder of Duncan to be disseminated. The King had not yet 
arisen. He was resting, so far as the public knew, and MacBeth 
has too deeply written himself in murder and in blood to allow the 
slightest intimation of the tragedy. 

MacBeth was not wickedly ambitious. He had won honors 
in the field and had succeeded to titles and estates. He was simply 
weak, though given to action as Hamlet was weak and given to 
inaction. His whole character is plainly and clearly shown in that 
which his wife says of him in her soliloquy: 

"Thou wouldst be great; 
Art not without ambition, but without 
The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly, 
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, 
And yet wouldst wrongly win." 

His wife knew him thoroughly. If he would not play false, even 
though wrongly win ; if he were not without ambition but were with- 
out the illness, that is the willingness to disregard the means, no 
matter how evil or how bloody they were, provided he would attain 
his end, and if that which he desired highly, that is earnestly, he 
would have holily, that is through rightful means, how can it be 
charged against him, as Dr. Hudson charges that he was "Wickedly 
ambitious". No question is made of her ambitions, nor can any 
question be made of her innate cruelty. The murder is committed. 
MacBeth meets with his wife. MacBeth trembling and conscience 
stricken over that which had been done at her command, is trembling 
in remorse. He says to her: 



57 



MacBeth.— 



"Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!' 
MacBeth doth murder sleep, the innocent sleep, 
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast — " 

Lady MacBeth.— 

"What do you mean?" 

MacBeth.— 

"Still it cried, Sleep no more to all the house; 
'Glamis hath murdered sleep and therefore Cawdor 
Shall sleep no more, MacBeth shall sleep no more." 

And Lady MacBeth derides him; asks him who it was who cried 
thus; tells him that he unbends his noble strength, which has just 
committed a horrid murder, to think of such homesickly things! 

Without the slightest tremor of remorse; without the slightest 
fear; caring nothing for the murder of his guest invited to her castle, 
she bids MacBeth go and get some water and wipe the filthy witness, 
that is to say the blood, from off his hands. And then she asks him 
why he brought the daggers with him ; her cruel mind retains her 
cold, her selfish details of the plot she had arranged. She bids him 
take the daggers back; they must lie near the scene of the murder 
and he must smear the sleepy grooms, near Duncan's door with 
blood. He refuses. He will go there no more. He dare not look 
again on that which he had done. Does she plead with him that the 
smearing of the grooms with blood would tend to fasten the crime 
on them? Does she tell him that her mad ambition would be in 
danger unless the evidences of guilt were turned from him and her to 
others? By no means. She acts herself, after saying to him: 

"Infirm of purpose! 
Give me the daggers; the sleeping and the dead 
Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood 
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed 
I'll gild the faces of the grooms without 
For it must seem their guilt." 

While she is gone upon her mission, to fasten guilt upon the innocent, 
there comes a knocking at the door and MacBeth is unnerved. His 
wife comes back and says: 

"My hands are of your color, but I shame 
To wear a heart so white. I hear a knocking 
At the south entry; retire we to our chamber; 
A little water clears us of this deed: 



58 



How easy is it then! Your constancy 

Hath left you unattended. Hark! More knocking! 

Get on your gown lest occasion call us, 

And show us to be watchers. Be not lost 

So poorly in your thoughts." 

MacBeth.— 

"To know my deed 'twer best not know myself (knocking without) 
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" 



Ambition on the part of a wife for her husband is an ambition 
that is laudable. It is an ambition which might lead her to the for- 
getting of friendships and to the use of means not altogether laudable 
in themselves. But if the ambition were solely for her husband's 
advance, it would be an unselfish ambition based on wifely qualities 
of affection, of mutuality of action; of suggestion on her part of 
means by which her wifely interest in her husband would be brought 
to good and wholesome results. Sincerely unselfish ambition of a wife 
for her husband would never lead her to the doing of wrong to her 
neighbor or to his, much less would it lead her to the doing of murder 
under any circumstances, while the ambition of Lady MacBeth leads 
her to the murder of Duncan and then to the murder of the two 
grooms, sleeping near the King. Hers was not the hand that plunged 
the dagger into the breast of Duncan. Hers was not the hand that 
drew the sword and took the lives of the poor and the wholly inno- 
cent grooms. But hers was the ambition and hers the mind that 
placed the dagger in the hands of MacBeth and bade him go upon his 
work of murder, from King to groom. 

When MacBeth comes unto her after the murder of Duncan, 
he is trembling. Not with fear of physical violence unto himself 
nor unto her; but he heard a cry while he was doing his bloody work 
that he was murdering sleep; he hears a knocking when he returns 
and he is trembling. He could do no more! but she not only could, 
but did. And how she despises him! Her hands are of his color — 
stained with blood, but she would shame to have a heart so white as 
his. There could not be wifely, laudable, womanly and unselfish 
ambition in a heart, like hers compared with which ademant would 
have been a yielding and a melting thing! She it is who smears the 
faces of the grooms, and makes their death inevitable and a little 
water will "clear us of the deed" and how easy it will be then! 

In her there was not alone the mad ambition for herself that took 
her husband — a gallant soldier in the service of his King — under her 
complete, and dominant, and unyielding control, but there was, the 
skillfully laid plot, and there was cunning and a plain showing of a 
heart absolutely dead to all feelings of humanity — therefore to all 

59 



feelings of laudable and unselfish ambition for her husband's advance 
through which she, too, would have advanced; but to the means of 
the accomplishment she ever could have turned, and so could he, 
with knowledge and appreciation of the fact that in the accomplish- 
ment she had done no wrong. With the continued knocking at the 
door, there would be some one to answer, and the discovery of the 
murder would follow. She had smeared the grooms with blood and 
the blood of Duncan was flowing. MacBeth appreciates nothing 
but the deed he has done and his troubled conscience. So they 
must retire to their chamber, for the knocking may bring about 
occasion that would call them, and they must not be found as 
watchers. 

True it is when Lady MacBeth describes her intents and 
purposes in the few words: ''0 never shall sun that morrow see," 
that MacBeth is hesitating — but he has not and could not have 
grasped in his mind the bloody program she had arranged. It is 
true that when he tells her they will speak further, he indicates a 
willingness to be guided by her, but he likewise indicates a willing- 
ness to continue in his belief that the prophecy of the witches may 
be brought to pass without his action aiding it — and he was inactive. 
It was not he who wrought the tragedy. It was wrought because 
of the mad and the selfish ambition of his wife. It can not be other- 
wise and it can not be that Shakespeare intended otherwise. It is 
true that, though I have said otherwise, it was MacBeth who 
slew the grooms. He was the active murderer, but it was she who 
was the real slayer. 'Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers! 
Why did you bring them here? If Duncan is bleeding, I'll gild the 
faces of the grooms, for do you not understand, the crime must be 
made to seem it was their crime and they must be held for it and not 
we?" And with the coming of the day — the coming of the sun which 
could not see the morrow on which Duncan would go hence — and 
the seeing of the blood upon the faces of the grooms where it had been 
smeared with the blood of Duncan, it is MacBeth in hypocritical 
and scandalous indignation who draws his sword and slays them. 
His was the hand that drew the sword — but the slaying was the 
slaying of the hand that had carried the dagger through the halls of 
high Dunsinane, in the dark, and made the evidence that the crime 
was the crim^e of the grooms! Was Lady MacBeth unselfish in her 
ambition? Was she ambitious only for her husband? Was she 
unselfish? 

The question answers itself in the reading of the tragedy com- 
pared with which the murder of Hamlet's father by Claudius fades, 
for the tragedy of MacBeth was the work of the mind and the soul of 
a woman. 

60 



MACAULAY AND CARLYLE. 



ILL you draw a comparison between the styles of 
\Q Q) Maeaulay and Carlyle?" 




The one thing held in common by Maeaulay 
and Carlyle was that each used the English 
language in expression of his views, opinions, 
judgments, criticisms and eulogies. Each used it 



in a way peculiarly his own rendering comparisons 
impossible. Carlyle was as rough as the rugged Russian bear. 
Maeaulay was as placid as the murmuring stream in the forest, un- 
disturbed by the winds of heaven. If I were invited to ride with 
the two distinguished writers, thinkers, essayists, with the under- 
standing that I was to sit between the two and draw inspiration 
from both at one and the same timxe, the invitation would be respect- 
fully declined— previous engagements being, of course, the reason 
for the sending of regrets. It would be a ride of jelly cake on the 
one side and corn pone on the other; a ride in which there would 
come from one side the gentle and the seductive voice of the classical 
persuader and from the other a torrent of rugged facts from which 
I might draw my own conclusions. But what a poor and thought- 
less fool I would be if my thoughts took not the turn the rugged 
Russian bear was taking ! 

Each was a master of language. Maeaulay clothed his words in 
velvets. Carlyle in roughened corduory. The one argued from 
premises. The other presented his premises in a manner so striking 
that to demand argument from him would have been taken as dis- 
respectful; or that the demand came from one on whom argument 
would be lost. Each wished and desired that the world should look 
on things of importance through the glasses each might furnish. 
Each played an important part in world life and world work, and 
each will" live in the history of the world and of great writers, ex- 
ponents and persuaders. Each told the truth as each saw the truth; 
the one in the trained and the scholarly voice of the thinker, the 
observer and the describer. The other in the rough voice of the 
earnest seeker after truth, the scorner of shams, the despiser of 
hypocrites and the pitiless foe of the shammer. One took you by 
the arm, saluting you courteously, and with kindly but forceful 
manner presented his views. The other grasped you by the arm; 

61 



halted you; showed facts to you; looked into you; clubbed you, 
if he thought clubbing was needed and roared on ahead among the 
crowds, attracting them by his vehemence, holding them by his 
earnestness and passing away unto another crowd, while out of the 
torrent of words and condemnatory language, there would come 
the voice of velvet and the citizen would turn to it with relief. 
Carlyle writes this, in his history of the French Revolution: 

Woe now to all body - guards, mercy is none for them! Miomandre de 
Sainte-Marie pleads with soft words, on the grand staircase, 'descending four steps 
to the roaring tornado. His comrades snatch him up, by the skirts and belts, 
literally from the jaws of destruction; and slam to their door. This also will 
stand few instants; the panels shivering in, like pot-shreds. Barricading serves 
not: fly fast, ye body-guards! rabid Insurrection, like the Hellhound Chase, 
uproaring at your heels! 

"The terror-struck body-guards fly, bolting and barricading; it follows. 
Whitherward? Through hall on hall: woe, now! Towards the Queen's suite 
of rooms, in the furthest room of which the Queen is now asleep. Five sentinels 
rush through that long suite; they are in the ante-room knocking loud: 'Save 
the Queen!' Trembhng women fall at their feet with tears: are answered: 
"Yes, we will die; save ye the Queen!" 

Tremble not, women, but haste: for, lo, another voice shouts far through 
the outermost door, "Save the Queen!" and the door is shut. It is brave Mioman- 
dre's voice that shouts this second warning. He has stormed across imminent 
death to do it; fronts imminent death, having done it. Brave Tardivet du 
Repaire, bent on the same desperate service, was borne down with pikes; his 
comrades hardly snatched him in again alive. Miomandre and Tardivet: let 
the names of these two body-guards, as the names of brave men should, live long. 

Trembling Maids of Honor, one of whom from afar caught glimpse of 
Miomandre, as well as heard him, hastily wrap up the Queen; not in robes of 
state. She flies for her life, across the Oeil-de-Boeuf ; against the maindoor of 
which, too, Insurrection batters. She is in the King's apartment, in the King's 
arms; she clasps her children amid a faithful few. The imperial-hearted bursts 
into mother's tears: '0 my friends, save me and my children! O mes amis, 
sauvez moi et mes enfans!' The battering of Insurrectionary axes clangs audible 
across the Oeil-de-Boeuf. What an hour! 

Macaulay writes this, in his essay on Ranke's history of the 
Popes: 

About a hundred years after the final settlement of the boundary line be- 
tween Protestantism and CathoHcism, began to appear the signs of the fourth great 
peril of the Church of Rome. The storm which was now rising against her was 
of a very different kind from those which had preceded it. Those who had formerly 
attacked her had questioned only a part of her doctrines. A school was now 
growing up which rejected the whole. The Albigenses, the Lollards, the Luther- 
ans, the Calvinists, had a positive religious system, and were strongljr attached to it. 
The creed of the new sectaries was altogether negative. They took one of their 
premises from the Protestants, and one from the Catholics. From the latter they 
borrowed the principle, that CathoHcism was the only pure and genuine Chris- 
tianity. With the former, they held that some parts of the Catholic system were 
contrary to reason. The conclusion was obvious. Two propositions, each of 

62 



which separately is compatible with the most exalted piety, formed, when held in 
conjunction, the groundwork of a system of irreligion. The doctrine of Bossuet, 
that transubstantiation is affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of Tillotson, 
that transubstantiation is an absurdity, when put together, produced by logical 
necessity the inferences of Voltaire. 

Carlyle was great in his powers of description. It was reason- 
able that he should be so. He cared only for facts on which to base 
his eulogies or his excoriations. Caring only for facts and gathering 
them it was natural that his powers of description should grow and 
become, in fact, one of his most prominent traits. In his essay on 
Dr. Francia he describes the march through the very heart of the 
towering Andes: 

Few things in late war, according to General Miller, have been more note- 
worthy than this march. The long straggling line of soldiers, six thousand and 
odd, with their quadrupeds and baggage, winding through the heart of the Andes, 
breaking for a brief moment the old abysmal solitudes! For you fare along, on 
some narrow roadway, through stony labyrinths; huge rock-mountains hanging 
over your head on this hand, and under your feet on that; the roar of mountain- 
cataracts, horror of bottomless chasms; — the very winds and echoes howling on 
you in an almost preternatural manner. Towering rock-barriers rise sky-high 
before you, and behind you, and around you; intricate the outgate! The road- 
way is narrow; footing none of the best. Sharp turns there are, where it will 
behoove you to mind your paces; one false step, and you will need no second; 
in the gloomy jaws of the abyss you vanish, and the spectral winds howl requiem. 
Somewhat better are the suspension-bridges, made of bamboo and leather, though 
they swing like see-saws: men are stationed with lassos, to gin you dexterously, 
and fish you up from the torrent, if you trip there." 

In his essay on Frederick, the Great, of Prussia, Macaulay 
writes this: 

"Silesia had been occupied without a battle; but the Austrian troops were 
advancing to the relief of the fortresses which still held out. In the spring Frederick 
rejoined his army. He had seen little of war, and had never commanded any 
great body of men in the field. It is not, therefore, strange that his first military 
operations showed little of that skill which, at a later period, was the admiration 
of Europe. What connoisseurs say of some pictures painted by Raphael in his 
youth, may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederick's early bad manner. 
Fortunately for him, the generals to whom he was opposed were men of small 
capacity. The discipline of his own troops, particularly of the infantry, was un- 
equalled in that age; and some able and experienced officers were at hand to 
assist him with their advice. Of these, the most distinguished was Field-Marshal 
Schwerin, a brave adventurer of Pomeranian extraction, who had served half the 
governments in Europe, had borne the commissions of the States General of Hol- 
land and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, had fought under Marlborough at Blen- 
heim, and had been with Charles the Twelfth at Bender." 

Can you find a comparison between the extracts given from the 
writings of Carlyle and Macaulay? Each wrote of events of years 
before either of the two came into prominence. Yet in reading the 
two we find Macaulay treating events, changes of dynasties and 

63 



accessions of territory or loss of territory as an editor commenting 
on the fact brought in by the reporter, or coming from Washington 
or from London or from BerUn. We find Carlyle treating them as 
though he had been a participant in them, or as observer of the events 
himself. In that Carlyle was greater and obtained more force than 
Macaulay. In Macaulay it was the tone of the essayist. In 
Carlyle it was the personal tone, attractive, though rugged and con- 
taining always a lesson plainly visible in all its ruggedness. 

It is an exceedingly rough, but a perfectly descriptive story 
Carlyle tells of the attack on the palace during the revolution. It 
was a story he had gathered from the annals of the time, preserved 
in cellars, written in foreign lands by the banished, or the fleeing 
French from the guillotine and the bloody terrors of the revolution. 
Yet we see it plainly and distinctly. 

''Miomandre de Sainte Marie pleads with soft words, on the 
grand stair case, descending four steps to the roaring tornado. His 
comrades snatch him up by the skirts and belts ; literally from the 
jaws of destruction; and slam to their door. This will also stand 
few instants; the panels shivering in, like potsherds; barricading 
serves not; fly fast ye body guards — rabid insurrection like the 
Hellhound Chase, uproaring at your heels!" 

In that paragraph there is the story of the bloody revolution 
''barricading serves you not! Fly fast, ye body guards! Rabid 
insurrection, like the Hellhound Chase, uproaring at your heels," 
and it is rounded out in the concluding scene where the Queen grasps 
her children in her arms and prays for safety! But of what avail! 
Rabid insurrection is uproaring at the heels, as de Sainte Marie is 
saved by his comrades and as the weeping Queen prays for safety 
''the battling of insurrectionary battle clangs audible across the Oeil 
de Beauf." Was it necessary for Carlyle to add: "What an hour." 
It was not necessary to add the exclamation so far as his perfection 
of description is concerned. "What an hour" is the expression of 
the thought of Carlyle as his hand traced across the paper the story 
we may believe he saw from his description. 

How is it with Macaulay in his essay on Ranke's history of the 
Popes? It tells of an event that brought with it war and war and 
bitter and continued hatreds begotten of religious hatred. His de- 
scription of the "storm which was now rising," as he termed it, is 
mellifluous. "The Albigenses, Lollards, the Lutherans, the Calvin- 
ists, had a positive religious system. The creed of the new sec- 
taries was altogether negative The doctrine of Bossuet 

that transubtantiation is affirmed in the Gospel and the doctrine 
of Tillotson, that transubstantiation was an absurdity, when put to- 
gether, produced by logical necessity the inferences of Voltaire." 

64 



The statements are true so far as the giving over of the faith is 
involved. It is true, no doubt, in his description of the ways and 
means through which new faiths were wrought about as restlessness 
or other human means or emotions brought them into operation. 
But is it not absurd for Macaulay to speak of transubstantiation as 
the "doctrine of Bossuet"? Is it historically ethical? The doctrine 
of Bossuet! And Macaulay knew better — ^but probably thought the 
majority of his readers would not know better. Carlyle would not 
have attributed the doctrine of transubstantiation to Bossuet — or 
to any writer of any nation nor of any age succeeding the Last 
Supper and the writing of the first of the Gospels, or the last of the 
Gospels. He might have attacked the doctrine — but he never 
would have laid it down in choicest English on velvet pages that it 
came from other than from interpretation of the Gospels. 

Allow another extract from the story of the French revolution — ■ 
the fall of the Bastile: ''See Huisser Maillard, the shifty man! On 
his plank, swinging over, swinging over the abyss of that stone ditch ; 
plank resting on parapet; balanced by a weight of patriots — ^he 
hovers perilous; such a dove to such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty 
usher; one man already fell; and lies smashed far down there 
against the masonry; usher Maillard falls not; deftly, unerring, 
he walks with outstretched palm. The Swiss holds a paper through 
the porthole; the shifty usher snatches and returns. Terms of 
surrender: pardon; immunity to all! Are they accepted? ''On 
the faith of an officer," answers half pay Heulin, or half pay Elie, for 
men do not agree on it: "They are" Sinks the drawbridge — Usher 
Maillard bolting it when down! Rushes in the living deluge — the 
Bastile is fallen! Victory! The Bastile is taken!" 

What a wealth of description in the few words Carlyle uses! 
The Bastile is taken! The Monarchy overturned; the living deluge 
rushes within the Bastile to unlock the doors and liberate the im- 
prisoned. The Monarchy is dead! The Republic succeeds it — 
and anarchy and bloodshed with it! 

How is it with Macaulay in descriptive powers? Quite gentle- 
manly in contrast to Carlyle. His description of the death of 
Hampden may be taken as illustrative of his powers. Certainly 
the occasion, the time and the events determinable by the result 
of the contest in the days of the Commonwealth in England offered 
him a magnificent opportunity — so did the high characteristics of 
Hampden, willingly accorded him by enemy no less than by friend: 

"Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands leaning on his horse's 
neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which had been inhabited 
by his father-in-law, and from which in his youth he had carried home his bride 
Elizabeth, was in sight. There still remains an affecting tradition that he looked 

65 



for a moment towards that beloved house, and made an effort to go thither to die. 
But the enemy lay in that direction. He turned his horse towards Thame, where 
he arrived almost fainting with agony. The surgeons dressed his wounds. But 
there was no hope. The pain which he suffered was most excruciating. But he 
endured it with admirable firmness and resignation. His first care was for his 
country. He wrote from his bed several letters to London concerning public 
affairs, and sent a last pressing message to the headquarters, recommending that 
the dispersed forces should be concentrated. When his public duties were per- 
formed, he calmly prepared himself to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the 
Church of England, with whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the 
chaplain of the Buckinghamshire Green-coats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter de- 
scribes as a famous and excellent divine." 

His public duties being done, Hampden prepares for eternity. 
He was attended by a clergyman of the Church of England, with 
whom he had lived in habits of intimacy and by the chaplain of the 
Buckingham Green Coats, Dr. Spurton. Why did not Macaulay 
stop at that point? But he must add that Dr. Burton had been 
described by Baxter as a famous and excellent divine! Absolutely 
unnecessary and bringing a fall from the pathos of a death bed 
scene of a gallant soldier to the depths of inappropriateness. 

It must, however, be conceded to him that, falls of that depth 
were not usual with him. In fact they were rare and in one of his 
speeches in the House of Commons he embodied in few words great 
lessons applicable to all nations and to each individual, for that 
matter. Asserting that the nobility of France had delayed for too 
long the granting of just concessions to the peasantry, he added: 
''Because they resisted reform in 1783, they had to resist revolution 
in 1789. They would not endure Turgot and they had to endure 
Robespierre," and he asks: 

"Why were they scattered over the face of the earth, their titles abolished, 
their escutcheons defaced, their parks wasted, their palaces dismantled, their 
heritages given to strangers? Because they had no sympathy with the people, 
no discernment of the signs of their time; because, in the pride and narrowness 
of their hearts, they called those whose warnings might have saved them theorists 
and speculators; because they refused all concessions until the time had arrived 
when no concessions would avail." 

Undoubtedly Macaulay was of the brilliant and the strong men 
of public life. He was ornate to a tiresome degree at times — but 
the question he asked and the answer he gave as to the cause and 
the results of the French revolution are excellently descriptive — 
not so appealingly descriptive as Carlyle was when he told of Rabid 
Insurrection, like the Hellhound chase, battering at the doors. 
But Carlyle was writing for his own and for future generations, 
while Macaulay was addressing the House of Commons of England, 

66 



and showing to the membership that delay in recognition of just 
rights of the pubUc of England would tend to bringing about like 
conditions which had prevailed in France, where the weeping Queen 
prayed for safety and went to death by the guillotine. 

It is completely true that there was nothing of the mataphysical, 
nor of the theological in the French revolution. It was a series of 
the most dreadful and horrifying facts. The material lying to his 
hand was inexhaustable. The characters were of history; a new 
era was beginning — everything, in fact, was at his very doors. He, 
however, was the only one of the historical writers who seized upon 
the facts, marshalled and presented them without fear or favor, 
telling the truth and telling it as never before was it told and never 
since. He writes in the present tense always. In that he holds 
his reader with him in not telling of what had been done but, by his 
manner of presentation, taking the reader with him, in close com- 
panionship, pointing out the scenes of blood; the downfall of the 
monarchy; the murder of the King and the shocking, barbarous 
spectacle of Marie Antoinette guillotined. In addition to his great 
powers of description, Carlyle adhered to accuracy to the utmost. 

The marked difference between the two is that Carlyle was 
content with facts as they were. Macaulay lacked that faculty. 
Carlyle so marshalled his facts that they spoke for themselves and 
carried conviction with them. Macaulay, while not willfully avoid- 
ing facts, seemed to be of the impression that his readers were not of 
like capacity with himself and fell to the custom of larding over his 
facts until, in many important instances, the reader's attention was 
drawn more to the argument than to the promises and his interest 
would wane. He is formal to a degree; egotistic when imperson- 
ality would have made him stronger and given to the opinion that 
his utterance of words, in itself, stamped them with all the weight 
necessary to bring conviction. 

Carlyle was opinionated; in his close companionship with reader 
or hearer, his greatest element of persuasiveness is to be found. He 
was so strong, so observant, so persistent, so expressive, so earnest 
and so determined, however, that his opinion of himself disappeared 
from the mind of the reader and only his strong and his fearless 
descriptive powers presented themselves and abided. Moreover, 
Carlyle was never at a loss for a word or phrase. He fitted many 
words to the occasion, and not one of his inventions were misunder- 
stood. 

Carlyle viewed events, and the actors in them were described 
and considered merely as the agents of the events. He was not so 
harsh to men as to the events in which they were the chief actors. 
It was the mioving of the world to him; the beginnings of a new era. 

67 



Macaulay judged men harshly. Of William Pitt, the friend of the 
colonies in the days of taxation without representation, Macaulay 
wrote that: '*He was not invited to becom.e a placeman, therefore 
he stuck firmly to his old trade of patriot.'' In other words that 
Pitt was purchasable and not being purchased by the government 
remained among the patriots, that is among men who see their 
country first and place and power secondary. Of Boswell, the- 
biographer of Samuel Johnson, and one of the most unique of all 
writers, he said that: ''If he had not been a great fool, he would 
not have been a great writer." 

Macaulay never descended from his heights to hum.or. With 
Carlyle it was a favorite weapon. He speaks of The Vile Age of 
Pinchbeck; Wild Anarchy and Phallus Worship; The Church 
of England is Galvanized Catholicism; he creates the characters of 
the Duke of Trumps, the Right Honorable Zero; Dr. Dryasdust 
and Sir Hickory Buskin and uses them in flaying shams and hypo- 
crisies in domestic and foreign matters of government. You may be 
repelled by the vigor of his style; its roughness — but you will sur- 
render to its fearlessness, its pathos, its bitter denunciation of shams 
and of wrongs committed in the name of Justice. You will sur- 
render to his magnificent powers of description; you will be in- 
fluenced by it. 

It is not so with Macaulay. It is he who must deliver the facts. 
If all were set before you, there might be some to militate against 
that to which he wished to persuade you. He will not intentionally 
misstate facts — but he is the prescribing physician and the facts are 
to be given out in doses. He will argue with you and most eloquent- 
ly — but he has not the convincingly persuasive power from that old 
and rugged and fearless scorer of wrong, hate of shasms, despiser of 
hypocrisy and insistor on the rights of all to justice and equal pro- 
tection of the law, with the law enforced by a blind justice unable 
to note whether wealth and place, or poverty and humble conditions 
stood arraigned. For me the rough corduroy of Carlyle, rather 
than the smooth velvet of Macaulay. 



68 



BURKE ON CONCILIATION. 




N CONCLUSION of the wars between France and 
England over claims for territory and resulting in 
the acquisition by England of the Thirteen 
Colonies, later the United States of America, the 
governmental procedure of the successive Eng- 
lish Ministries was that of interference with trade 



and commerce, taxation without representation 
and reservation of the right of appointment of all officials. The 
especial objection and protests on the part of the Colonists were 
against taxation without representation. 

In 1774 an Act was passed conferring upon the king the right 
of appointment of the president of the Council of each Colony, 
the appointments of the royal Governors who, in turn, appointed 
the general council vested with legislative authority and always 
subservient to the wishes of the British Ministries. In other 
words, the rule of England was so despotic that the American colonies 
not only protested in written words but in acts which we were looked 
upon as rebellions. The successive Ministries, with the exception 
of that of the Earl of Chatham, were blind to the fact that the 
people of the Colonies were of the samxe rank, were devoted to 
liberty and had risked their lives in the founding of what Edmund 
Burke later called ''A Great Empire.'' 

But the oppressive legislation continued. One Bill removed the 
Customs collections from Boston to Salem, to the great inconveni- 
ence of the principal port of Massachusetts. The Act caused great 
inconvenience and loss of money. It was followed by a Bill gather- 
ing the regulation of all trade and commerce of the Thirteen Colo- 
nies into the hands of the British Board of Trade. The Colonists 
in each of the thirteen were aroused to special indignation by the 
passage of another Act authorizing the Royal Governors to send to 
England for trial any person charged with an offense committed 
against any law. In 1775 the Colonists saw no hope of reconcilia- 
tion and, though practically without money and without organiza- 
tion, determined to resist. 

During the administration of the Earl of Chatham, serious 
illness compelled his retirement for a time. During his absence 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced a new bill taxing the 
Colonies on their industrial products sent to England, the bill 

69 



making no provision for representation. And the crisis was reached. 
On his return to duty, Chatham violently opposed the bill and in- 
sisted on its repeal. In this he was supported by Edmund Burke, 
but the Chatham ministry was defeated and Lord North, bitterly 
hostile to the Colonies, became Prime Minister. 

In the meantime the battles of Lexington and Concord and 
Bunker Hill had been fought, and Burke introduced a series of reso- 
lutions providing for conciliation with the Colonies. Lord North 
and his associates continued their blindness. Each and all the 
Colonial Assemblies passed resolutions vehemently condemning 
the bills. A Continental Congress was in session when the 
news of the battles and the protests reached England; the Burke 
resolutions were introduced but were defeated by a majority ex- 
ceeding one hundred. And then came Burke's great speech on Con- 
ciliation, ranking among the highest of great orations, and in the 
paragraph wherein he defines his proposition unequalled as a master- 
piece of rhetoric. 

Affirmative in its opening sentence, it was negative in the suc- 
ceeding sentences. There are many who object to its value as an 
illustration of the effectiveness of language in the fact that to the 
superficial observer it is replete with repetition. In the hands of 
Burke, the Master of Language, the negative becomes stronger than 
the affirmative and repetition adds vigor instead of producing 
weakness. 

It is not amiss today to note that Minto dismisses the great 
speech on Conciliation in these few words: ''His famous speech on 
Conciliation with America was made in support of certain resolutions 
that he introduced in 1775." 

What was Burke? The following description of him is given 
by MacKnight: 

''Tall and endowed with much vigor of body, his presence was 
noble. His dress, though not slovenly, was by no means such that 
would have suited a leader of fashion. He had the air of a man 
who was full of thought and care and to whom outward appearance 
was not of the slightest consideration. In his whole deportment 
was a sense of personal dignity and self-respect. It was not usual 
to see his face mantling with smiles. His troubles were impressed 
on his features, giving him a severe expression which deepened with 
advancing years. 

"The marks about the jaw, the firmness of the lines about the 
mouth, the stern glance of the eye, the furrows on the expansive 
forehead were the sad ravages left by the difficulties and sorrows of 
genius and by the iron which had entered into his soul." 

70 



Carlyle describes him as a ''resplendent, far-sighted rhetorician 
rather than a deep, pure thinker." 

We will come in contact with Carlyle later. Between Burke 
and Carlyle, great though both were, there is a gulf as wide and as 
deep as that of Mexico. Carlyle was not a rhetorician as Burke 
was, and when he calls him a splendid far-sighted rhetorician, there 
is in the expression a trace of sneer. Carlyle, like many in later 
days, applies the term rhetorician to Burke as a master of flowing 
language, forgetting, as many do today that the rhetorician is the 
writer or speaker who grasps language, masters it and makes it 
obedient to the absolutely necessary quality of effectiveness. 

Burke saw as the great Earl of Chatham saw, the certainty of 
independence of the Colonies, the defeat of England with or without 
the aid of France. He saw with unerring sight that if the Colonies 
succeeded, revenge would be taken by the English ministry on the 
people of Canada and of Scotland and Ireland especially, with the 
English people also suffering from the blindness of the Hanoverian 
King of England to the march of events. The Bill or the resolutions 
introduced by Burke in the House of Commons were: ''For quieting 
the present troubles in America." The exact vote by which the 
resolutions were defeated were two hundred and ten in the negative 
against one hundred and five. in the affirmative. ''Let us get an 
American revenue," said Burke, "as we have an American Empire. 
English privileges have made it all that it is; English privileges 
alone can make it all that it can be." 

It might be said that the entire question of the conciliation 
of the Colonies was embodied in that one sentence. By English 
privileges, Burke meant, in the main, the privilege of representation 
in the legislative body and in the power to levy taxes, with other 
privileges of lesser consequence. Notwithstanding the force and 
effectiveness of the sentence quoted, is it not, even in a remote 
degree, comparable with the magnificent opening of the dominant 
paragraph of his speech: "The proposition is peace." Before com- 
menting on that paragraph, it is necessary to a right understanding 
of its strength to quote and comment on other paragraphs preceding 
it. It is also necessary to bear in mind the fact that Burke knew 
from the beginning that his cause was lost; that the king, the Min- 
istry and both houses of Parliament were hostile to him, to the Earl 
of Chatham and to the sound and just views they held of the situation 
in America confronting the British Empire. Burke's fight was not 
that of a man in a corner; it was not the fight of a man for fame 
alone, nor for an exposition of his powers of oratory; it was not 
that of a man seeking the adulation or applause of this crowd. 
It was the speech of a man holding fast to that which was right; 

71 



to justice and to good government; representative in its character 
beneficial in its results and the overthrow of which could not result 
otherwise than disastrously to his country— and he loved his country 
with a patriotic self-sacrificing love. He was on the losing side but 
the side that held to the right. Therefore it is not in the least sur- 
prising that his speech on Conciliation ranks among the great 
orations of modern times. It is a speech worthy in the highest 
degree of your study as a masterpiece of rhetoric. 

The staging of the House of Commons for the scene enacted 
on June 22, 1775, was magnificent. No members were absent. 
The whips on both sides had done their full duty and the forces of 
the Government and the opposition were in line. Lord North and 
the other peers of his ministry were in the gallery of the House. 
The Com.mons of the Ministry were on the floor ready to obey the 
call of the leader, not knowing the importance of the occasion to 
the country but realizing fully that place and power were in the 
balance and that it was their duty to be obedient. The galleries 
were crowded with citizens and foreign diplomats. The streets were 
thronged with men who loved a Lord and saw only royalty as the 
one right method of Government. 

*'No man of sense,'' said Dr. Johnson, ''could meet Mr. Burke 
by accident and under a gateway without being convinced that he 
was the first man in England." George the Third knew it. So did 
the Ministry and Parliament know it. They knew he had behind 
him the forces of right and of justice, that his speech would be 
printed, circulated and read, and that not all their sophistry could 
combat one proposition that Edmund Burke would advance. 

The fateful moment came. Burke arose and addressed the 
Speaker of the House in a few words, but filled with bitter sarcasm. 
The Speaker and the House of Commons knew that a vigorous 
protest was to be entered and unyielding demand for a just adminis- 
tration would be made. Then Burke called attention to the fact 
that a bill closely relating to America had been retained in the 
House of Lords. He notified the Speaker that neither he nor his 
supporters were embarrassed by an incongruous mixture of coercion 
and restraint. 

Saying this: ''Let us get an American revenue as we have an 
American Empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; 
English privilege alone can make it all that it can be. In full con- 
fidence of this unalterable truth I now lay the first stone of the 
Temple of Peace and I move you these resolutions." 

The first resolution recited the existence of fourteen American 
Colonies, Canada being included, containing upwards of two million 
of free inhabitants; they that had not the liberty or privilege 

72 



burgesses or others to represent them in Parhament. The second 
resolutions recited the imposition of subsidies rates and taxes by 
Parhament though the Colonies have no representatives in the 
Parliament. Other of his resolutions recite the dissatisfaction over 
the grant of taxes and subsidies by Parliament. Another resolution 
demands the withdrawal of import taxes on American products 
received in England; others ask the repeal of a statute of England 
under which the citizens of the Colonies indicted for crime were 
taken from their native countries and sent to England for trial. 
Other resolutions voice the dissatisfaction of the Colonies, but each 
and all were subordinate to the protest against taxation without 
representation. After notifying the speaker that he would not 
submit to coercion, Burke plunged into his subject. His resolutions 
and the quotation following show the tenor of the subject, of the 
forcefulness of the speaker, and of the obstacles that he knew would 
be thrown in his way. Following are the quotations: 

''America, gentlemen, is a noble object. An object well worth 
fighting for if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. 
Gentlemen, in this respect, will be led to their choice by means of 
their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the 
military will, of course, have some predilection for it. They who 
wield the thunder of the state may have more confidence in the 
efficacy of arms. But, I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, 
my own opinion is much more in favor of prudent management than 
of force, considering force not as an odious but as a feeble instrument 
for preserving a people so numerous, so active and so growing, as 
this in a profitable connection with use of force alone is but tem- 
porary. It may subdue for a moment but it does not remove the 
necessity for subduing again — and a nation is not governed which is 
perpetually to be conquered. There is still a third consideration 
concerning this object which serves to determine my opinion on 
the policy which ought to be preserved in the management of 
America — I mean its character and its temper. In the character 
of the American, a love of freedom is the predominant feature 
which marks and dominates the whole, and as an ardent love is ever 
a jealous love, your colonies become suspicious, restless and in- 
tractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them 
by force, or by shuffle, or by chicanery, that which they hold alone 
is worth living for. And this free spirit of liberty is stronger in the 
colonies than in any other people of the earth. They are not only 
devoted to liberty but to liberty according to English ideas and on 
Enghsh principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, 
is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object and 

73 



every nation has forced to itself some favorite point which, by way 
of eminence, has become the criterion of their happiness. It hap- 
pened, as you know, that the great contests for freedom in this 
country were, from the earhest times, chiefly on the question af 
taxation. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and the most 
eloquent of tongues have been exercised; the greatest spirits have 
acted and suffered. The colonies draw from you, as with their life 
blood, these ideas and principles, their tone of liberty, as with you, 
fixed and attached in this specific point of taxation. Liberty might 
be safe or might be endangered in twenty other particulars without 
their being much pleased or alarmed. I do not say whether they 
were right or wrong in applying your general arguments to their 
own case, for it is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems 
and corollaries. The fact, however, is that they did apply these 
general arguments and your mode of governing them, whether 
through lenity or intolerance, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed 
them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest 
in these common principles. 

'^Dissenting principles have sprung up in direst opposition to 
all ordinary powers of the world and they could justify their oppo- 
sition only in a strong claim to natural belief. All Protestantism, 
even the most cold and passive, is a kind of dissent. But the re- 
ligion in our northern colonies is a refinement in the principles of 
dissidence; it is the dissidence of dissent and the protestantism of 
the Protestant religion. 

''Three thousand miles of ocean between you and them! No 
contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening 
government. Seas roll and months pass between the order and the 
execution, and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is 
enough to defeat the whole system. You have, indeed, winged 
ministers of vengeance who carry your bolts in their pouches to the 
remotest verge of the seas. But there is a power steps in that 
limits the arrogance of raging passion and furious elements and 
says: 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.' Who are you 
that you should fret and rage and bite the chains of nature? 

"Let us get an American revenue, as we have got an American 
Empire. English privileges have made it all that it is: English 
privileges alone will make it all that it can be. 

"These are deep questions, where great names militate against 
each other; where reason is perplexed; and an appeal to the 
authorities only thickens the confusion; high and reverent authori- 
ties lift up their heads on both sides and there is no sure footing in 
the middle. This point is the great 



74 



'Serbonian bog 

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, 
Where armies whole have sunk.' 

"I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in 
such respectable company. The question with me is not whether 
you have the right to make people miserable, but whether it is not 
your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer may 
tell me I ought to do. Is a politic a^t the worse for being a generous 
act? Is no concession proper but that which is made from your 
want of right to keep what you grant? Or does it lessen the grace 
or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim because 
you have your evidence room full of titles and your magazines 
stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those titles 
and those arms? Of what avail are they when the reason of the 
thing tells me that the assurance of my title is the loss of my suit 
and that I could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my own 
v^eapons?" 

During the delivery of his master speech Burke was frequently 
interrupted, although the names of the interrupters are not given. 
Burke never losing his dignity, never allowing himself to show 
irritation, nevertheless turns on his interrupters on the floor of the 
house and in the galleries saying, ''you have indeed, winged ministers 
of vengeance who carry their bolts in their pouches to the remotest 
verge of the seas. But there is a power steps in that limits the 
arrogance of raging passion and furious elements and says: 'Thus 
far shalt thou go and no farther.' Who are you that you should 
rage and bite the chain of nature." And then there came the grand 
climax : 

"The proposition is Peace, not peace through the medium of 
war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate 
and endless negotiation; not peace to rise out of universal discord 
fomented from principle from all parts of the empire; not peace 
to depend on the judicial determination of perplexing questions 
or the precise marking of the shadowy boundaries of a complex 
government. 

''It is simple peace sought in its natural course and its ordinary 
haunts. It is peace sought in the principles of peace and laid in 
principles purely pacific. I propose by removing the grounds of 
difference and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the 
colonies in the mother country to give permanent satisfaction to 
your people; and — far from the scheme of ruling by discord — 



75 



to reconcile them to each other and by the bond of the very same 
interest which reconciles them to the British Government." 

If you know of a more magnificent bit of rhetoric; if you 
know of a more thoroughly effective presentation of great premises, 
in few words, carrying with them impregnability; holding within 
them right and justice; arraigning the ministry of Lord North 
pitilessly, mercilessly, but justly, in few words and easily understood 
by the masses, bring it to the class room. 

Contemporary writers say that sneers and hisses and shuffles 
of feet were plentiful during the delivery of the oration, until Burke 
unquestionably turning his face and extending his clenched fist in 
the direction of Lord North, laid down his proposition in four words: 
"The proposition is peace." 

The proposition which Lord North and his ministry had con- 
sidered was tangled and intricate; the record shows the fact. 
These are the days of Commissions, and commissions, and commis- 
sions of all sorts, powers and conditions. Judicial Commissions, 
Peace Commissions, and Boundary Commission are found in these 
days in multiplicity. Evidently there were suggested by Lord 
North and in the strongest bounds of probability would be appointed 
by him, as he appointed the Royal Governors and Councils and 
Judges. Burke knew it. And he tells Lord North what the peace 
he proposed was not. And rhetoricians and others find fault with 
Burke for repetition, especially in the use of the negative form. 
Possibly he saw a sneer on the face of Lord North. In any event 
he knew that the program to which he objected had been planned 
by North. And so he tells them : ''You shall not have peace through 
the medium of war; you shall not have peace through endless 
negotiations nor shall you have peace arising from fomented discord. 
You shall not have peace through tangled and judicial determination 
of boundaries.'' Then he tells him the details of the peace proposed 
by him in his four magnificent words. The peace which you shall 
have is the peace which is sought through its natural course and its 
natural haunts. 

''The peace which you shall have and which you will have is 
embodied in the resolutions now before you for consideration. It is 
peace sought in the principle of peace and laid in principles purely 
pacific." What answer could be made to Burke's proposition of 
peace? Lord North could make none and none was attempted. 
The resolutions of Mr. Burke were supported by Lord John Caven- 
dish, Mr. Hotham, Mr. Tuffnell, Mr. Sawbridge and Chas. James 
Fox, then a warm admirer and supporter of Burke, the ways 
between them parting on the question of recognition of the revo- 

76 



lutionary Government in France in 1778. It is true that Mr. 
Jenkinson, Mr. Cornwall and Lord Frederick Campbell spoke in 
opposition to the resolutions. But not one of them touched upon 
the magnificent climax of Burke, rhetorical and effective through- 
out. The reason need not be stated. Burke was in possession 
of the facts and principles involved; he had courage and fidelity, 
eloquence and sincerity, and a mastery of language which no man 
had in his day, and which very few have equalled since his day. 

If the principles for which Burke fought and which were de- 
feated by a vote of two to one had been adopted, the thirteen 
Colonies, today, in all probability would be part and parcel of the 
British Empire — as Canada and Australia are parts with the freest 
and most representative government on earth. 

But not even Burke's mastery of language would shine the light 
on the blinded eyes of Lord North. He saw nothing in Lexington. 
He saw nothing in Bunker Hill. He saw nothing in the Declaration 
of Independence. 

It was not until General O'Hara delivered the sword of Corn- 
wallis to General Lincoln, representing General Washington at 
Yorktown, were the eyes of England opened only to see the greatest, 
the most prolific country on earth passing from the jurisdiction of 
the flag of Britain and pursuing a great destiny under the Stars and 
Stripes. 



77 



THE NOBEL PRIZE. 




ILL you kindly give the class a talk on the Nobel 
prize?" is a question presented by one of the class. 
I will, not only kindly but emphatically. The 
question goes farther than the prize. Undoubted- 
ly the intention of the questioner extended to the 
personality of Nobel, to his life and the ways and 



means he followed in attainment of the great 
fortune which he devoted to destructiveness — for the Nobel prize 
is destructive in itself — not because of awards for the highest and 
best types of writing, but because there is no limitation nor any 
restriction on the subject of themes submitted to the Commission 
on awards. It is immaterial to the Commission, as it was to the 
intent of Nobel, whether the contender for the prize in the literary 
department portrays Christianity, Judaism, Infidelity, Materialism, 
or Socialism. It is of no moment whether he inculcates immorality, 
or Hinduism and paints either or both in the brightest and the most 
alluring colors. The question goes to literary merit only, not, 
however, applying to essays on the subject of Universal Peace. 

In considering the Nobel Prize we must consider the founder. 
Who and what was he? 

Alfred Bernhardt Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1833, 
and died in 1896. In early life he took his family to St. Petersburg, 
engaged in the study of torpedoes, and subsequently, in the manu- 
facture of the explosive. With his father he engaged in the con- 
struction of marine mines. Later he returned to Sweden and en- 
gaged in the study of other explosives, principally nitroglycerine 
and its utilization. About the year 1869 he discovered and patented 
the explosive called dynamite and in the early '70's he produced 
powder. Having amassed a fortune from the sale of his explosives, 
Nobel invested largely in the Baku oil fields and became a producer 
of a useful commodity, leaving the field of destructive explosives 
which he had covered successfully. His returns from his invest- 
ments in the oil fields were tremendously great and he evolved the 
idea of perpetuating his name by the establishment of the Nobel 
Prize. His will provided for the distribution of five prizes, annually. 
Each prize is of the value of $40,000, a total annual distribution of 
$200,000 — and the name of Nobel will be perpetuated. The first 
three prizes are awarded for eminence in physics, chemistry, phy- 
siology or medicine. The fourth is for the ''greatest work of an 
ideal tendency", and the fifth for the one who rendered the greatest 

79 



service in the promotion of universal peace. The awards for emi- 
nence in physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, and the fourth 
— the dangerous element in the foundation — for the ''greatest work 
of an ideal tendency" are awarded by the Sweedish Academy. 
The fifth, for the promotion of universal peace — an unattainable 
thing while man and ambitions and hatreds remain as they are — 
is awarded by the Norwegian Storthing. 

Thinking over the enterprise which Nobel undertook and fol- 
lowed out in his race for fame and money — principally money — it 
might not be out of place to believe that he was, by instinct and 
desire, a destructionist, a physical destructionist, so to call him. 
It is also impossible, and extremely probable that in his fourth prize 
for the ''greatest work of an ideal tendency", Nobel evidenced the 
destructiveness permeating his entire organization. Plainly he 
was dissatisfied with the ideals of his time and not only hungered for 
newer ideals but sought to plant and water in his early days of man- 
hood the field of the so-called ideals springing into existence and 
taking form and root in thoughtless ways as the years passed and 
his fortune grew to greater proportions. 

Whatever his intentions were in founding a prize for the "greatest 
work of an ideal tendency", whether he knew and approved the 
great possibility of the inculcation and the encouragement of wrong 
ideals, it is certain that destructiveness of right ideals is being en- 
couraged by the fourth prize. The award of the fourth prize to 
Tagore, of India, is conclusive of the question. It is an emphatic 
showing of the increase in the dangerous tendencies of the day to 
rush to new ideals without stopping by the wayside to consider the 
elements involved in them and surrounded by the dangerously 
beautiful frame in which they are presented — the frame being the 
Nobel Prize, after the award made by the Swedish Academy. Com- 
petition for the prize is not limited in the slightest degree. The 
Mohammedan may contest; the follower of Confucius is eligible 
and so are the adherents to the ancient faith of Israel. The Catholic 
is eligible; so is the Agnostic, or the Infidel, or the adherent of any 
one of the faiths of Protestant Christianity. 

To whom was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1914, for the greatest 
work of an ideal tendency? The successful contestant was Rabin- 
dranath Tagore. The title of the essay, or the book submitted by 
him was 'Sadhana; the Realization of Life.' In spreading this 
'greatest work of an ideal tendency before the American reading 
public', the publishers say: 

"Rabindranath Tagore's prose of which this book is the first 
example is no less remarkable than his poetry which has won for 
him the highest honor an author can conceive. The present volume 

80 



in which the famous writer of Bengal talks on the realization of life 
has a peculiar fascination for the western reader in that an oppor- 
tunity is provided of coming into touch with the ancient spirit of 
India as revealed in the sacred texts and manifested in the life of 
today." 

''Sadhana; the Realization of Life," was among the works of 
Tagore submitted to the Swedish Academy — the greatest work, no 
doubt, in the opinion of the Academy, of an ''ideal tendency." It is 
Indian, Hindustanee throughout. It may represent the highest 
ideals of India — but does it represent the highest ideals of peoples 
believing in God and not in Buddha? 

Who is Tagore? A scholar, undoubtedly. Versed in Mathe- 
matics; a philosopher, according to the philosophy of Buddha, as 
he states in his remarks introductory to his ''Realization of Life"; 
a Harvard student; a teacher in Bengal, thoroughly versed not 
. alone in his native language, but in English, and the fact that his 
book was translated by himself is an assurance that the spirit of the 
book has been preserved and its object furthered. In his preface he 
returns thanks to Professor Woods, of Harvard, for the "generous 
appreciation" which encouraged him to complete the series of papers 
embodied in the book and read "or most of them before the Har- 
vard University", another evidence of the encouragement which 
men and writings receive from universities these days — especially 
when the man or the thing produces something "new" or, if not 
new in India, at least new and therefore refreshing to the fad hunter. 

Tagore adds that: "These papers embody in a connected form, 
suited to this publication, ideas which have been culled from several 
of the Bengali discourses which I am in the habit of giving to my 
students in my school at Bolpur, in Bengal; and I have used here 
and there translations of passages from those done by my friends 
Babu Chandra Roy and Buli Ad jit Kuman Chakravarti." 

There can be no doubt then, of the course of inspiration of 
Tagore. It is in Buddha, as he frankly admits. It is noticeable, 
also, that while always reverent to Buddha and Buddhism and while 
thanking Professor Woods, of Harvard, presumably an adherent of 
some Christian denomination; Tagore gives a slap at Christianity 
in his introduction when he says: "All the great utterances of men 
have to be judged not by the letter but by the spirit — the spirit which 
unfolds itself with the growth of life in history. We get to know the 
real meaning of Christianity by observing its living aspect at the 
present moment, however different that may be, even in important 
respects, from the Christianity of earlier periods." 

The Christianity which suits Tagore, and unfortunately suits 
too many in this land today, is the Christianity without stability 

81 



- — the Christianity which takes on new forms and shapes with each 
sunrise and accommodates itself to the whims of the day and to the 
fads of the modern universities. Did the Swedish Academy take 
note of the slap in the face of Christianity? Possibly. But the 
question before the Academy was which, of all the papers submitted, 
was the ''greatest work of an ideal tendency?" Ideals grow rapidly 
in India for the excellent reason that the Tagores know the avidity 
with which the occidentals are given to hugging ideals, high or other- 
wise, the one demand being only that they must be ''new." 

Nobel and his destructiveness have been discussed; so has the 
founding of the prize in its five departments. Tagore has been 
presented and what does he say in his laureated "Realization of Life?" 
On page 61, he says: "There was a time when we prayed for special 
concessions, we expected that the laws of nature should be held in 
obeyance for our own convenience. But now we know better. We 
know that law can not be set aside, and in this knowledge have be- 
come better. Thus, through the help of Science, as we come to 
know more of the laws of nature, we gain in power; we tend to 
attain universal body." Therefore, in the view of Tagore, prayer 
is no longer necessary. Man gains in power only as he comes, 
through the help of Science, to know more of the laws of nature. 
Something decidedly materialistic in that, with a tinge of atolism 
so prevalent in and among the Asiatics. 

In discussing the "Problems of evil," Tagore says on page 55: 
"It is a truth that man is not a detached being; that he has universal 
aspect; and when he realizes he becomes great. Even the most 
evilly disposed selfishness has to recognize this when it seeks the 
power to do evil for it can not ignore truth and yet be strong. So, 
in order to claim the aid of truth, selfishness has to be unselfish to 
some extent. A band of robbers must be moral in order to hold 
together as a band; they may rob the whole world but not each 
other. To make an immoral intention successful, some of its wea- 
pons must be moral. In fact very often it is our very moral strength 
which gives us the power to do evil, to exploit other individuals for 
our own benefit, to rob other people of their just rights." 

Other fundamentals laid down by Tagore, the winner of the 
Nobel Prize, are these: "What is false is true to an extent or it can 
not be even false". . . . "In this age of Science it is our endeavor 
to fully establish our claim to our world self. We know that all 
our poverty and sufferings are owing to our inability to realize this 
legitimate outside the universal power which is the expression of 
universal law. We are on our way to overcome disease and death, 
to conquer pain and poverty; for through scientific knowledge, we 
are ever on our way to realize the universal in its physical aspect. 

82 



And as we make progress we find that pain, disease and poverty of 
power are not absolute, but that it is only the want of adjustment 
of our individual self to our universal self which gives rise to them/' 

The sketch of the Nobel Prize, its founder, its object and its 
results may be gauged by the award of the prize to Tagore, of India 
— disciple and follower of Buddha; a slapper at Christianity; a 
substitutor of will power for Providence; a scoffer at prayer and 
why? Because ''Science" so dear to the materialist of today, has 
taught mankind that prayer is of no avail. 

Harvard University is welcome to Tagore. The Nobel Prize 
has fallen from the heights in the award to Tagore. All over the 
land there were inquiries as to the aims and objects of the Nobel 
Prize, since its award to the Buddhist, Tagore, and if the thinking 
people will but continue their inquiries and their researches, there 
will be a much better understanding of the evils of the Prize far out- 
weighing the benefits that might come from it in the way of universal 
peace and in the way of encouraging deeper and more thorough 
studies in medicine and in physiology. The evil is in the fourth 
department, the department of ''higher ideals" — save the mark! If 
the prize is to be judged by the award to Tagore, the sooner it is 
withdrawn, if it can be withdrawn, the better for mankind. If it is 
to continue and other Tagores becom^e prize winners, the joy of the 
materialists will be great. The award to Tagore, in my view of the 
case, is a showing that the Nobel Prize is a destructive in its ten- 
dencies, morally and educationally, as the explosives, which brought 
the fortune to Nobel and enabled him to found the prize, were phy- 
sically destructive. 

The ease with which the world is swayed today is pitiful! It only 
needs for some one to advertise a new cure for all the evils with which 
the world is afflicted — more or less — and the crowds that gather 
round the devil's booth are wonderfully large, wonderfully easy 
when it comes to lead them — and if the frame be gilded or the door- 
way open wide and music from within the crowds not only gather 
round the booth but follow, follow, follow, until some other, some 
slightly newer, some more attractive fad appears and the crowds 
rush to the new call of the wild. It is immaterial to the manufacturer 
of the fads. He is completely willing that men should follow fads. 
University professors commend them while they continue to lead 
the multitudes from well grounded faith and from practices which 
ever recognize duty to a Supreme Being — to God. I hope, and am 
inclined to believe that the greatest and the most beneficial mistake 
the Swedish Academy could have made was in the award of the 
Nobel Prize to Tagore of India. In Cincinnati there is a man who 



83 



once was the leader of men — and helped them pitilessly to destructive 
measures in the policies of the States. His vanity grew and grew 
and finally convinced him that he could laugh at the faiths of men, 
as he has laughed at the ease with which we had led them with his 
Robespierreian qualities. He denied the Resurrection of our Lord 
and selected Sunday for his denial. He overshot his mark. Catho- 
lics were not alone in denouncing his blatant blasphemy. Protes- 
tants and men who were only nominally members of some Christian 
congregation denounced him — and the influence he once had he now 
does not have today. It may be so with the Nobel Prize. Not all men 
are given over to Materialism nor to Buddhism nor to fads of 
Science — and while the ancient enemy of mankind is shrewd and 
permanently industrious he overdoes his destructive work at times 
and it is to be hoped the Nobel Prize award to Tagore is an evidence 
that even Satan can overreach himself. 

In connection with the question of Tagore, I may answer the 
question referring to 'The Prince of India," by Wallace, and as to 
whether I see anything commendable in it. I do not. It is not up 
to the standard of his 'Tair God'' in any degree and there is some- 
thing too much of Mahatmaism in it. To me the book was heavy 
at times, fascinating at times, but with too much attention paid to 
detail and not sufficient talent, or tact, to give the genius of Wallace 
a right portrayal. Apart from Kipling, who writes of India and of 
the East Indians under British rule and keeps away from mystical 
propositions, the whole trouble with Indian writers and English 
writers treating of India and its so-called psychological principles 
and development, in as the mysticism in which they reveal, possibly 
without full comprehension, themselves, but always confident that 
their readers know no more, if as much, as they do. The handsome 
frame is put around the story and it becomes one of the best sellers. 
The Prince of India is as filled with plagiarisms from Indian folk- 
lore and mystic lore as the world of pitfalls for the unwary. 

Wallace was not a profound man, nor a man of learning. At one 
time he published a book of legends of the Child Jesus and St. Joseph 
and our Blessed Lady — and he had the sublimity of literary nerve to 
assert that it was the first book of the sort or description, ever given 
to the world — the poor fellow! The Child Life of Jesus in books 
and in manuscripts in Catholic circle is, practically, as old as the art 
of printing. The one happy thought was in the fact that Wallace 
had awakened to the beauty of the Child life of our Saviour and was 
giving to our separated brethren a knowledge they never had before. 
And this is said notwithstanding the fact that the so-called ''Legends" 
were, evidently, very largely the inventions of the kindly heart of 



84 



Wallace. They were stilted and not in the least like the life of the 
Holy Family as Catholics know and appreciate it. Moreover, 
long before Wallace brought out his tribute to the Child life of our 
Saviour, Longfellow, in his Golden Legend recounted many of them. 
Do you remember when the teacher called on the Child Jesus to 
recite the alphabet? And how when he said: ''Aleph'' and stopped 
the teacher, impatient, said: ''Come, come Aleph — and what is 
next?" I am not quoting the exact words but when the Child 
Jesus said: ''What Aleph means, I fain would know, before I any 
farther go." The teacher raises his hand to strike the Divine Child 
and his arm is paralyzed — and then was restored to strength. One 
day St. Joseph calling the Child Jesus from the banks of a stream 
where he was playing with other children, and receiving no answer, 
goes down to the stream, takes the Child Jesus by the ear — and his 
finger bleeds as though a thorn had pierced it. And the Child Jesus 
bowing reverently and affectionately, takes the bleeding hand in his 
and kisses it and the wound is healed. 

And there is a story of the flight into Egypt and how Joseph and 
Mary halted for the night, with our Blessed Lady bathing her Divine 
Son and then seeing a mother with a leprous child on the oasis, 
lovingly and kindly takes the poor child, bathes it in the water in 
which she had bathed the Child Jesus and the little beggar is healed 
instantly of his leprosy — and the legend is that the child so miracu- 
lously cured, was, on Mt. Calvary, the penitent thief on the Cross. 
There are myriads of legends of the Child life of our Saviour — each 
teaching a beautiful and a marvelous lesson. They were too thor- 
oughly Catholic, and would not have suited the readers. Wallace 
found his was of few days and full of trouble. It lasted a 
very short time and it would be surprising if a copy could be had 
today. Wallace should have confined himself to Fair Gods, or 
books of that sort, with the real fact being that he should have con- 
fined himself to politics or to wars. As a writer he merely took the 
materials others had prepared either in ancient Aztec writings or 
in the folk lore of that remarkable people, dressed them in more 
pleasing garb and gave them to the public. My opinion of the Prince 
of India may easily be gathered from what I have said of the author. 
He was a gentleman in all things ; he was bright and he was courteous 
and clean — but where are his books today? Certainly not among 
the best sellers. 

These questions have been submitted by two miembers of the class : 
1. Will you give your opinion of Nathaniel Hawthorne's English 
in the House of the Seven Gables? If time allows, will you kindly 
take some extracts as you did in the Tale of Two Cities? 



85 



The other questions are: In the House of the Seven Gables 
did Hawthorne intend us to regard Chfford as partly insane? 

Does he intend the story to teach any lesson? In what way 
does he think stories should teach, if they do teach? 

Is supernaturalism introduced into the House of the Seven 
Gables directly or by implication? Does the author express his 
belief in it, or does he suggest the possibility of natural causes? 

Hawthorne was a master of English. By some he is hailed as 
the greatest of all American novelists. It is said of him that as a 
master of style he was inimitable, and that no one ever wrote purer 
English or used words more delicately and powerfully. 

Hawthorne was of a mood as melancholy as that of Hamlet. 
Melancholy was part and parcel of his nature. He was Puritan 
throughout and Puritan of the sort that did not believe in smiles, 
but hugged gloom and melancholy to their hearts from the day the 
Mayflower sailed from Holland until the day Pilgrims landed at 
Plymouth Rock, unloaded their guns and their melancholy, enacted 
their Puritan laws and burned witches. Sometimes a variance in 
test of guilt or innocence by tying the hands and the feet of the 
accused old woman throwing her into a pond and judging of her guilt 
or her innocence by the fact of her floating or sinking. If she floated 
on the surface of the waters she was innocent. If she sunk under the 
waters, she was guilty. You may judge of the number that floated. 
They sold rum to the Indians; they banished Rodger Williams from 
Massachusetts to Rhode Island, because Rodger ventured to differ 
from the doctrines the Pilgrim Fathers loved and compelled all men, 
within their jurisdiction, to accept or to go to the whipping post, to a 
recantation of their heresies or to go out from the Plymouth Rock 
Colony among Indians, or elsewhere. 

As late as 1790, long after the last of the Pilgrim Fathers who 
came over in the Mayflower had gone to their eternal account, the 
people of Massachusetts adopted a constitution in which in the Bill 
of Rights this provision was incorporated: 

'The legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require 
the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or 
religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense 
for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support 
and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and 
morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made volun- 
tarily." 

And none but members of a Protestant congregation were eligible 
to hold office in the old Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While 



86 



it is to be commended in the old time Pilgrim Fathers and their 
descendants in 1790, that they regarded religion and morality as 
essential elements of good citizenship, vastly otherwise in these days 
when religion is banished from the State schools, the teaching of 
sound, moral conduct not only not allowed, but made to give place 
to modern fads and fantasies, yet the bigoted spirit of the old Massa- 
chusetts man is seen in the establishment of Protestantism as the 
State religion. Hawthorne was of the blood of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
not so bigoted as they were, yet retaining in himself the melancholy 
of his ancestors who deemed it a sin to laugh on the Sabbath Day, 
and mistook gloom and melancholy for the happiness that comes 
from real Christianity. 

It is not easy to give answer to the question whether Hawthorne 
intended or desired to convey the impression that Clifford was insane. 
There are times when the reader is inclined to the belief that Clifford 
was merely a monomaniac, because of the wrongs he had endured, 
or had been compelled to endure ; an example of a morbidly melan- 
choly disposition, but not insane. My inclination is to that view of 
the question. The citation from the House of Seven Gables in my 
endeavor to answer the question will, at the same time, be responsive 
to the question as to his English. 

Judge Pyncheon, visiting Hepzibah, in search of verification of 
his belief that Hepzibah and Clifford knew more of the Pyncheon 
will and the estate to which there were many claimants, threatened 
Hepzibah that if Clifford did not divulge what information might 
be in his possession, there would be but one alternative, saying: 

''That alternative, you must be aware and its adoption will de- 
pend entirely on the decision which I am now about to make. The 
alternative is his confinement, probably for the remainder of his life 
in a public asylum in his unfortunate condition." 

''You can not mean it," shrieked Hepzibah. 

"Should my cousin Clifford," continued Judge Pyncheon, wholly 
undisturbed "from mere malice and hatred of one whose interests 
ought naturally to be dear to him, a mode of passion, that, as often 
as any other, indicates mental disease.— should he refuse me the 
information so important to myself, and which he assuredly pos- 
sesses, I shall consider it the one needed jot of evidence to satisfy 
my mind of his insanity. And, once sure of the courses pointed out 
by conscience, you know me too well, cousin Hepzibah, to entertain 
a doubt that I shall pursue it." 

"Oh, Jaffray, Cousin Jaffray," cried Hepzibah, mournfully, 
not passionately, "It is you that are diseased in mind, not Clifford! 
You have forgotten that a woman was your mother! that you have 



87 



had brothers, sisters, children of your own. . . Then why should you 
do this cruel, cruel thing, so mad a thing, that I know not whether 
to call it wicked! Alas, Cousin Jaffray, this hard and grasping 
spirit has run in our blood these two hundred years! You are but 
doing over again, in another shape, what your ancestor did, and 
sending down to your posterity, the curse inherited from him." 

Judge Pyncheon, cruel, hardhearted, acrimonious, grasping and 
Puritanical as his ancestor Governor Pyncheon had been, and as 
unscrupulous as to the ways and means of his acquiring wealth, as 
his ancestor had been when he coveted the home of Maule and 
succeeded in obtaining it when he sent Maule to death by fire, 
answers Hepzibah, telling her to talk good sense, insisting that the 
responsibility for the result of the steps he might take against her 
Clifford depended wholly on her, and on her influence over Clifford 
in inducing him to do that which Judge Pyncheon demanded and 
Hepzibah in her agony answers : 

''You are stronger than I," said Hepzibah, after a brief considera- 
tion "and you have no pity in your strength. Clifford is not now 
insane, but the interview which you insist upon may go far to make 
him so. . . I will call Clifford. Be merciful in your dealings with 
him! Be more merciful than your heart bids you be! God is 
looking at you, Jaffray Pyncheon!'' 

Would you not be inclined to believe that Clifford had been 
insane and possibly was at the time of the interview? "Clifford is 
not insane now," is the statement of Hepzibah, but she fears that 
the interview with the stony-hearted kinsman, powerful and in 
search of wealth, may drive him to insanity; and Judge Pyncheon 
does not notice the statement but contents himself with the repetition 
of his determination to have the interview and to force from Clifford 
the statement he desired, Or would you be inclined to the belief 
that Hepzibah, knowing the mental weakness of Clifford, his mor- 
bidly melancholy disposition and his peculiarity of conduct, of 
thought and of speech, knew and appreciated the fact to the utmost 
that her cruel relative was powerful, while she and Clifford were poor 
and in distress, and that it would be in the power of the Judge to 
induce a jury to believe in the insanity of Clifford and consign him 
to any asylum ? The statement of Hepzibah that Clifford was not 
insane "now" may be taken as a sisterly appeal. Judge Pyncheon's 
passing over the remark without notice, may be taken as indicating 
to Hepzibah that insanity or insanity was of no consequence to him ; 
that he knew and felt that it would be within his power to send 
Clifford to an insane asylum because of his rank and wealth and 
position. I do not think Hawthorne wanted it believed by his 



88 



readers that Clifford was insane. Sane or insane, Clifford was 
afflicted with many of the signs and portents of insanity. Poor 
Hepzibah knew it and knew that the entire community knew it. 
She knew that to the mind and heart of the Judge, if he had a heart, 
that the question was of slight importance. There is added weight 
to the view of sanity on the part of Clifford by the accusation of 
Hepzibah: ''You are doing over again in another way, what your 
ancestor did, and sending down to your posterity the curse inherited 
from him.'' 

It was the equivalent of a statement to Judge Pyncheon that he 
knew Clifford to be sane, but that disregarding all thoughts or im- 
pulses of right action, he would do again, ''though in another way," 
what their ancestor. Governor Pyncheon, had done. I think it 
most probable that Hawthorne's intention was to leave the reader 
in doubt as to his real meaning with reference to the sanity of Clifford. 
He was illustrating the coldness and heartless cruelty of the Pyncheon 
family, from the Governor down to the Judge, with the characteristic 
continuing two hundred years. If we hold Clifford to be insane 
there would not be cruelty so great in his committal to an insane 
asylum. If he were but partly clouded mentally, or merely of a 
melancholy, crabid and morbid mentality, not insane but eccentric 
to an extreme, there would be the greatest possible cruelty in Judge 
Pyncheon sending him to an asylum, as Hepzibah knew the Judge" 
would do. It may be that Hawthorne with his own melancholy 
disposition and his misanthropic nature, took a pleasure in knowing 
there would be question made of his intent and purpose with reference 
to Clifford. It may have been his literary genius that led him to so 
write of it that the question would arise and be the subject of dis- 
cussion. If so, Hawthorne not only did not offend against a well 
defined plot — but the very doubt expressed is a tribute to his mastery 
of language. 

Did he intend the story to teach any lesson? It is possible that 
Hawthorne intended his House of the Seven Gables to teach the 
lesson that that which a man sows, that also shall he reap. That 
has been my interpretation of the book from the first reading of it 
many years ago. The Puritans were fatalists, at the least they were 
predestinarians and Hepzibah's warning, when she finally consents 
to tell Clifford that Judge Pyncheon was waiting for him, is indicative 
of the faith of the Puritans, the bitter faith they held of an eye for 
an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 

"You are doing over again, in another way, what your ancestor 
before you did, and sending down to your posterity the curse in- 
herited from him," said Hepzibah. In plainer words, with Haw- 



89 



thorne delighting in mystery: "You are sending down to your 
posterity in what you propose to do to poor CHfford, not alone the 
curse you inherited from your ancestor but the curse sure to follow 
from evil and the cruel deed you are determined to accomplish." 
In the words of Hepzibah there is the tinge of a curse intimated from 
herself, thought not put in plain words. As to Hawthorne's English, 
and as an evidence that Hawthorne did not intend that Clifford 
should be regarded as insane, there is magnificent illustration in his 
description of Clifford's feeling towards Phoebe Pyncheon, living 
with Hepzibah, and a magnificent illustration it is of the great 
powers of rhetoric. 

Hawthorne says: 'There is something very beautiful in the 
relation that grew up between this pair, so closely and constantly 
linked together yet with such a waste of gloom and mystery from 
his birthday to hers. On Clifford's part it was the feeling of a man 
endowed with the likeliest sensibility to feminine influence. . . He 
took unfailing note of every charm that appertained to her. All her 
little womanly ways budding out of her like blossoms on a young 
peach tree, had their effect on him. He read Phoebe as he would a 
sweet and simple story; he listened to her as if she were a verse of 
household poetry which God, in requital of his bleak and dreary lot, 
had permitted some Angel, that most pitied him, to warble through 
the house. But we strive in vain to put the idea into words. No 
adequate expression of the beauty and profound pathos with which 
it impresses us is attainable. This being made only for happiness 
and heretofore so miserably failing to be happy, his tendencies so 
hideously thwarted that, some unknown time ago, the delicate strings 
of his character never intellectually strong, had given way, and now 
he was imbecile, this poor forlorn voyager from the island of the blest 
in a frail bark on a tempestuous sea, had been flung by the last 
mountain wave of his shipwreck, into a quiet harbor. There, as he 
lay more than half lifeless on the strand, the fragrance of an earthly 
rosebud had come to his nostrils and had summoned up visions of all 
the living and breathing beauty amid which should have been his 
home. With his native susceptibility of happy influences he inhales 
the slight ethereal rapture into his soul and expires." 

His description of poor Hepzibah, of poor old sorrowing Hep- 
zibah, is exquisitely beautiful. Hawthorne says: 'Truly was there 
something high, generous and noble in the composition of poor old 
Hepzibah, or else, and it is quite probably the case, she had been 
enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by the strong 
and solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism 
which never could have characterized her in what are called happier 



90 



circumstances. . . And here, in his later dechne, the lost one had 
come back out of his long and strange misfortune and was thrown on 
her sympathy, as it seemed, not merely for the bread of his physical 
existence, but for everything that should keep him morally alive. 
She had responded to the call. She had come forward, our poor, 
gaunt Hepzibah, in her rusty silks with her rigid joints and that sad 
perversity of her scowl, ready to do her utmost and with affection 
enough if that were all to do a hundred times as much. How 
patiently did she endeavor to wrap Clifford up in her great warm love 
and make it all the world to him, so that he would retain no torturing 
sense of the coldness and dreariness without. Her little efforts to 
amuse him! How pitiful, yet magnanimous they were! 

You can see poor old Hepzibah, of the blood of the Pyncheons! 
You can see her kindly acts towards poor Clifford, "in his late de- 
cline'' coming back ''out of his long and strange misfortune" and 
you can fully appreciate the gentleness of Hepzibah to all, to sweet 
little Phoebe Pyncheon and you can appreciate the consolation she 
brought to Clifford! Hawthorne, unquestionably, was a master of 
English, and none the less so because, through all the House of the 
Seven Gables, there is a vein of mystery, or of supernaturalism as the 
Sister submitting the question termed it; that vein was part and 
parcel of the story, and the vein is introduced not directly but by 
implication so strong that it ranks with the strength of circumstantial 
evidence introduced in a case where a party is charged with an 
offence against the law. It is there from the curse of Maule until 
the ending of the novel in these words : 

''Maule's well all this time, though left in solitude, was throwing 
up a succession of kalaidescope pictures in which a gifted eye might 
have seen the coming fortunes of Hepzibah and Clifford, and the 
descendant of the legendary wizard and the village maiden over 
whom she had thrown love's web of sorcery. The Pyncheon elm, 
moreover, with what foliage the September gale had spared to it, 
whispered unintelligible prophecies. And wise old Uncle Vanner, 
passing slowly from the ruinous porch, seemed to hear a strain of 
music and fancied that sweet Alice Pyncheon after witnessing these 
deeds, this bygone woe, and this present happiness of her kindred 
mortals, had given one farewell touch of a spirit's joy upon her 
harpischord, as she floated heavenward from the House of the Seven 
Gables!" 

I am thankful for the questions, only one of which remains un- 
answered: ''In what way does Hawthorne think stories should 
teach, if they should teach at all?" 

By not impressing on the pupil, day in and day out, that he is 



91 



being taught! In the way that Shakespeare taught. He laid the 
lessons before his pupils, the whole world, so plainly, so forcefully 
and so attractively, that the lesson taught or impressed itself and 
the mind of the pupil was not only instructed and enlightened, but 
refreshed. I mention the names of Hawthorne and Shakespeare 
together, but only for the purpose of illustrating my opinion that 
Hawthorne thought, as Shakespeare thought, that the lesson should 
speak for itself. The. system would not work, perhaps, in the 
elementary grades, but it does with the readers of the House of the 
Seven Gables. The lesson was that a man reaps what he sows and 
that the one right rule of action is to ''Be just and fear not." 



92 



JULIUS CAESAR. 



ERE Antony's motives in persecuting Brutus a 
mixture of revenge for his friend's death and per- 
sonal ambition? His appreciation of the no- 
bihty of Brutus, near the end of the tragedy, 
points to nobihty of character, in himself. 

That is a question practically as difficult to 
answer as it was to give contrast, or comparison of 
Scott's conception of the Jewish character with Shakespeare's con- 
ception of it as exemplified in Isaac and in Shylock, respectively. 

It is to be borne in mind always that there is much of good in 
man and it is likewise to be borne in mind that the good, too often 
buried in the soul, during the life of an enemy finds vent only when 
the enemy dies. Then the better, the nobler, element rises and 
from the heart there goes out a tribute to the better qualities of the 
dead — ^and the going may not, and did not in the heart of Antony 
overlook or forget the enmity between himself and Brutus. He 
pays tribute to the good qualities of his enemy — but he was an enemy 
and a conspirator against the crown of Caesar and against his 
country. Another thing to be borne in mind is that while Shakes- 
peare, in depicting the Jewish character in Shylock gave him no 
nobler qualities of heart or of soul, he withheld them from him with a 
purpose. He was depicting the Jewish character as it was held to 
be in Venice, and in England likewise— and the Gentiles of Europe 
saw no good qualities in the Jew. But in others of his dramas, 
comedies and tragedies, Shakespeare, like all great minds, saw the 
better qualities and brought them forth under certain appropriate 
times and conditions and added thereby to his effectiveness, whether 
of exposition, narration, description or persuasion. In one other 
instance Shakespeare withholds any attribute of ennobling character- 
istics. Lady MacBeth has none — not one is attributed to her. 
The one faint expression of the fact that she was a woman and 
dying, was when the wail of women came from her room. That 
expression of an attribute of any one good quality in Lady MacBeth 
is so slim that it is not to be considered as minimizing the terrifiically 
effective description of her given by Shakespeare. But when we 
come to the consideration of the suggestion that the appreciation of 
Brutus expressed by Antony, as indicating nobility of character in 
himself, some study and thought are necessary. It is not to be 

93 




thought of Antony that he was without some nobihty of character.- 
It is true that he was variable, inconsistent, a player to the gal-- 
leries; one of the shrewdest and most effective of all persuaders; 
one of the most perfect stagers of scenes and of events; one of the 
best seizers of opportunity in and among all the characters of Shakes^ 
peare; but of his courage there is no doubt and cannot be and we 
may concede to him nobility of character but to what extent is it 
portrayed in the concluding lines of the great tragedy of Rome? 

There is no mystery in the play; it is acted in the open. The 
two characters to whom distrust of their fellows may be attributed 
are Cassius and Antony. Cassius had but slight respect for Antony 
and but little confidence in him. The opinion held by Cassius 
might, when Cassius, himself, is considered, be taken as compli^ 
mentary to Antony. But, at the same time we must remember that 
Cassius was no fool, but a keen observer of men and a fairly good 
judge of human nature. 

Some contrast Julius Caesar with Hamlet and there is some- 
thing of resemblance between Brutus and the Melancholy Dane. 
Each felt that he had a duty to perform. Brutus to his country 
and Hamlet to the memory of his father and, as we are considering 
the subject from the rhetorical view point, we will concede that the 
duty of each was plain and not to be avoided. Brutus did not 
avoid the doing of that which he felt to be his duty. Hamlet 
avoided and postponed the doing of the duty which lay to his hand 
to do until the very one on whom the duty of vengeance was to be 
done, himself, furnished the means wherewith it was done. 

It is not probable, that is it is not made all plain that Brutus 
fully considered the effects of his duty on the future. Sometimes 
it seems, in considering his character and his mentality as Shakes- 
peare portrays them, that the present was all in all to him. He had 
done that which he felt it to be his duty to do and the future must 
care for itself. If the Roman people did not appreciate that which 
he had done, nor the reasons, why he had done it, let the conse- 
quences be theirs — and at the end he dies by his own hand. An- 
tony survives and his future is not the future the high-minded Brutus 
would have lived if he had not anticipated it and gone into eternity 
at his own hand. 

To Brutus, Caesar was a tyrant to be rid of whom the Romans 
needed a man of action. To Hamlet, Claudius was a thing to be 
removed as a thing abhorrent to humanity; a monster to be slain 
in memory of his father and that his mother might be separated 
from him. The good or the evil effects of the slaying of Claudius 
on the future of Denmark was as nothing to Hamlet. The ven- 
geance wreaked on Caesar by Brutus was the vengeance of a people. 

94 



of whom Brutus was the self -chosen instrument. The vengeance 
planned to be wreaked on Claudius by Hamlet was personal ven- 
geance with Hamlet chosen by the ghost of his father to be the in- 
strument. Brutus was a man of high ideals, but something of a 
dreamer as Hamlet was and, like unto Hamlet, giving to soliloquis- 
ing. But he was a doer of things as Hamlet was not. We cannot 
so well compare Brutus with the Melancholy Dane. There are 
contrasts between them. 

Moreover, considering the two men for another moment — the 
life of Hamlet was one of unrequited love. The wife of Brutus, 
Portia, was a woman of high ideals, his friend, his comrade and his 
ever dear and confiding companion. Brutus while of courage 
sufficient to kill a King — ^the great Caesar — was kindly and con- 
siderate. His conflict of words with Cassius was bitter, but he ad- 
mits that he had been ill-tempered when he said that of which 
Cassius had most bitterly complained. Cassius asks then for his 
hand and Brutus says: ''And my heart, too," and that from thence- 
forth when Cassius is over earnest with him, he'll think his mother 
chides and leaves him so. 

Antony is brilliant, but there is in him a tone of insincerity; he 
was courageous but a player to the rabble. Undoubtedly he ad- 
mired Brutus. It was impossible that it could be otherwise, but he 
played upon him unmerifully in his magnificent oration over the 
dead body of Caesar. It would not have availed him in his plans if, 
at any time, he had sought to belittle Brutus. There is a tinge of 
envy of Brutus in him. None knew better than Antony did the 
high ideals Brutus possessed, acting upon them and holding them 
fast, influenced therein no doubt by his wife, Portia. 

In the tragedy, notwithstanding the great parts played by 
Brutus and Antony, Caesar is, after all, the dominant figure not- 
withstanding the suddenness of his taking off. He rises far above 
them all — Brutus, Cassius — far above each and every one of the 
conspirators who planned and brought about his death, and far above 
Antony who aroused the rabble after his assassination, though An- 
tony remained faithful unto him so far as fidelity held sway within 
him. His devotion to Caesar may have been because he recognized 
in the great Roman characteristics he, himself, did not possess and 
never could, but he shows devotion to him — and nobility of character 
with it in this: 

"I shall remember! 
When Caesar says *do this' it is performed." 

It was ever so with Antony. For that reason, there is more 
willingness to the ascription of nobility of charater in the concluding 

95 



words of his tribute to Brutus, dead, which never he would have paid 
to Brutus hving. Antony goes from the presence of Caesar; the 
soothsayer cries aloud ''Beware the ides of March," and all depart 
save Brutus and Cassius, with the latter asking Brutus if he will not 
go to the course. ''Not I,'' is the answer of Brutus, and he con- 
tinues : 

"I am not gamesome. I do lack some part 
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. 
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires. 
I'll leave you." 

He desires to be alone, that he may commune with himself as. 
Hamlet desired. Cassius tells Brutus he has noticed in him of late, 
a loss of gentleness from his eyes; that he bears too stubborn and 
too strange a hand over the friend that loves him. Brutus is con- 
sidering Caesar. He feels within himself a vein of delay; a tendency 
to postponement; he is thinking of Antony as one who might be 
brought into the tragedy of the death of Caesar; he envies the quick 
spirit of Antony and the shouts come from without with Brutus fear- 
ing that the populace have chosen Caesar for their King. "Do you 
fear it?'' asks Cassius. "Then must I think you would not 
have it so." 

Brutus. — 

"I would not Cassius; yet I love him well; 
But wherefore do you hold me here so long? 
What is't that you would impart to me? 
If it be something for the general good, 
Set honor in one eye, and death i' the other, 
And I will look on both indifferently; 
For let the gods so speed me as I love 
The name of honor more than I fear death." 

Cassius proceeds with his lengthy story of how he was born free 
as Caesar. "And so were you, Brutus." And of how one day, upon 
the troubled banks of the Tiber, Caesar had challenged him to 
plunge into the flood; how the challenge had been accepted and how 
the great Caesar had called unto him: "Help me, Cassius, or I sinkj"" 
continuing: 

"And this man 
Hath now become a god and Cassius is 
A wretched creature and must bend his body, 
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him." 

He tells how Caesar had a fever in Spain and when the fit is on 
him how he did shake. " 'Tis true, this god did shake." How he 
lost his lustre; how that tongue that bade the Romans mark him 
and write his speeches in their books cried out for drink as a sick girl 

96 



might cry. It amazes him that a man of such a feeble temper 
should get the start of the majestic world and bear the palm alone. 

Another shout and flourish, and Brutus, answering nothing that 
Cassius had said of Caesar, but fully appreciating the motives for 
the persuasive description of the ills to which the mortal frame of 
Caesar was subject, thinks that it must mean some new honors 
lieaped on Caesar. Again Cassius begins his persuasion. He con- 
cludes with the statement that: 

"0, you and I have heard our fathers say 
There was a Brutus once that would have brooked 
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome 
As easily as a King." 

The persuasive temptation of Cassius was unnecessary. Cas- 
sius was a conspirator by nature. Caesar had shown human quali- 
ties and now was conducting himself as a god. Cassius was of a 
nature that desired place and preferment and Caesar had not given 
either unto him as he felt should have been done. His is a 
suspicious nature, with a wonderful memory and he cites to the 
silent Brutus, the high-minded Brutus incidents in his connection 
with Caesar which, he thinks, will lead Brutus, to conspiracy against 
Caesar. His persuasive powers might have been great with one like 
unto himself. He keeps Brutus to himself, while without the 
plaudits and the shouts of the crowd tell of the honors being heaped 
on Caesar. ''There was a Brutus once,'' says Cassius. There is 
another, equal in action to the Brutus to whom Cassius referred, 
and it is made plain in the answer Brutus makes : 

Brutus. — 

"That you do love me I am nothing jealous; 
What you would work me to I have some aim; 
How I have thought of this and of these times 
I shall recount hereafter; for this present, 
I would not, so with love I might entreat you 
Be any further moved. What you have said 
I will consider; what you have to say 
I will with patience hear, and find the time 
Both meet to hear and answer such high things. 
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this; 
Brutus had rather be a villager 
Than to repute himself a son of Rome 
Under these hard conditions as this time 
Is like to lay upon us." 

Brutus has listened courteously to the long tirade of Cassius. 
He had considered the matter from a higher plane and from a sense 
of duty to his country. The greater depth of his thought is plainly 
and most effectively described in his answer. All that Caesar had 

97 



said he would consider — at its right value. He will listen with 
patience to what else Cassius may have to say to him and, at the 
proper time, will tell Cassius what he himself has purposed. The 
strength of his answer is in the concluding lines. He would be a 
villager than call himself a son of Rome under conditions likely to 
press hard upon us — not upon the future. 



Early in the play there comes the warning to Caesar. "Beware 
the ides of March." The warning is repeated, unheeded by Caesar, 
who says it comes from a dreamer and let it pass. There was the 
offer of the crown, thrice offered to him, once by Antony. Casca 
tells Cassius and Brutus of the offer made and how Caesar had fallen 
down in the market-place, foaming at the mouth. ''He hath the 
falling sickness," says Brutus. And Cassius answers: ''No Caesar 
hath it not but you and I and honest Casca, we have the falling 
sickness." Casca describes the scene in full after which he and 
Brutus leave and Cassius soliloquises. He says that Brutus is noble; 
he sees that the honorable may be wrought from that to which it is 
disposed; therefore it is meet that noble minds keep ever with their 
like. He determines this night that he will throw letters in the win- 
dows of Brutus' home, telling him of the high opinion in which the 
citizenship holds him; in the letters there will be hints of Caesar's 
ambition. After that Caesar must look to himself for Cassius and 
the other conspirators will either shake him or endure worse days. 

Brutus holds to himself alone. 

"It must be by his death; and for my part 
I know no personal cause to spurn at him 
But for the general. He would be crowned; 
How that might change his nature, there's the question. 
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder; 
And that craves wary walking. Crown him? 
— That— 

And then I grant we put a sting in him 
That at his will he may do danger with. 
The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins 
Remorse from power; and to speak truth of Caesar 
I have not known when his affections swayed 
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof 
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder 
Wherefore the climber upward turns his face; 
But when he once attains the upmost round 
He then unto the ladder turns his back. 
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
By which he did ascend. So Caesar may 
Then, lest he may, prevent! And since the quarrel 

98 



Will bear no color for the thing he is, 

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented, 

Would run to these and these extremeties; 

And therefore think him as a serpent's egg 

Which, hatched, would, as his kind, grow mischievous 

And kill him in the shell." 

The contrast between the plot and the conspiracy of Cassius and 
the deep thought of Brutus is most marked. Cassius would be rid 
of Caesar for personal reasons, aims and ambitions. Brutus would 
be rid of Caesar because he knew the inner nature of the man; that 
he would look kindly upon the crowds while climbing to the top- 
most rung of the ladder but, once there, he would look only to the 
crowds, forgetting the people and thinking only of his own ambitions 
and the great power which he had attained. 

Brutus soliloquises as Hamlet does. But Brutus gives reasons 
for that which he designs, while Hamlet appeals only to the emotional 
and to commands which he had received but did not follow. In the 
night Brutus receives the letters which Cassius had written — a plan 
often followed today by pohticians of the stamp and plan of Cassius. 
There come to him Cassius and other conspirators. The question 
of Antony is discussed. Decius asks whether Caesar alone is to be 
touched. Cassius thinks that as Mark Antony is so well beloved of 
Caesar he should not be allowed to survive him. Brutus settles the 
question. He tells Cassius it would be too bloody to cut off the head 
and then to hack the limbs. They should be sacrificers, but not 
butchers. Let us kill Caesar bodily, but not wrathfully. Let us 
carve him as a dish fit for the gods; not hew him as a carcass fit for 
hounds. As for Mark Antony, do not think of him; he can do no 
more than Caesar's arm when Caesar's head is off. Cassius says that 
h e fears him for the ingrafted love for Caesar. Brutus says that if 
he does love Caesar, all that he can do is to take thought and die for 
Caesar. There is much in that to show that between Brutus and 
Mark Antony there existed strong admiration and respect, if not 
friendship. Cassius, however, was right in his understanding of the 
nature of Mark Antony. Brutus thinks that he is given to sports 
and wildness. Cassius, the politician, knows Mark Antony's 
abilities as an orator and he appreciates the ease with which he can 
catch and hold the populace. The killing of Caesar is determined. 

Portia, later asks Brutus what is afoot. He declines to tell her, 
kindly and affectionately. Caesar knows some plot is being hatched 
against him. He bids his servants go to the priests ans ask of them. 
Their answer is that Caesar go not forth that day. Portia makes 
inquiries also and is greatly troubled over the part she knows Brutus 
is taking in some great and tragic event. The assassination follows. 

99 



Mark Antony sends his servant to Brutus and Brutus bids Mark 
Antony come, with Cassius still fearing him. The tribute Antony 
pays to Caesar is magnificent. He tells Brutus to fulfill his pleasure 
on him. Brutus answers that Antony should not beg death from 
them. To him their swords have leaden points, their arms receive 
him as a brother. Brutus is dignified, considerate, kindly and 
sincere. Cassius breaks in with the rude offer of the politician, in 
that Antony can be purchased. ''Your voice," says Cassius, ''shall 
be as strong as any man's in the disposing of new dignities." That 
is to say in dividing the spoils which Cassius considered the chief 
end and aim of the killing of Caesar. Brutus asks all to be patient 
until they have appeased the multitude. Antony says that he is 
friendly with all and loves them all in the hope that they will give 
him reason for the death of Caesar. Then comes the most perfect 
illustrations of the strength, the weakness, the effectiveness and 
ineffectivenesss of persuasion. 

The body of Caesar is prepared for burial. Brutus goes before 
the public. One citizen wants to hear Brutus speak; another wants 
to hear Cassius, a third calls attention to the fact that Brutus is 
about to speak and there is silence. 

"Brutus, be patient to the last. Romans, countrymen and 
lovers hear me for my cause and be silent that you may hear; be- 
lieve me for mine honor and have respect to mine honor that you may 
believe; censure me in your wisdom and awake your senses that, 
you may be the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any 
dear friend of Caesar, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was 
no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against 
Caesar — this is my answer — not that I loved Caesar less but Rome 
more. Had you rather Caesar were living and his slaves, than that 
Caesar were dead to live all freeman? As Caesar loved me, I weep 
for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I 
honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for 
his love; joy for his fortune, honor for his valor; death for his 
ambition. Who is here so base that he would be a bondsman? 
Who is here so rude that he would not be a Roman? If any, speak; 
for him I have offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his 
country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a 
reply." 

It was a magnificent bit of persuasion. Terse, concise, complete, 
addressed directly to the passions, the patriotism, the emotions of 
the mulitude. 

Brutus held high place in the esteem of the Romans. They knew 
his high ideals, his courage and his love of liberty. But what of it 
all? The crowd is shouting: "Live, Brutus, Live!" One citizen 

100 



wants to take him in triumph to his home. Another wants a statue \ 

erected in his honor. And there comes Mark Antony with the body : 

of Caesar. Brutus leaves, asking the crowd to Hsten to Antony, ■ 

who says he beholden to Brutus for the privilege. \ 

So great is the impression that Brutus has made upon the multi- \ 

tude that one citizen asks what it was that Antony had said of \ 
Brutus, adding that he had better say no ill of Brutus. Another 

says that Caesar was a tyrant and there is a call for silence. And i 

Antony comes with his magnificently persuasive speech: \ 

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; 1 

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. ] 
The evil that men do lives after them; 

The good is oft interred with their bones; \ 

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 1 

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: | 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault, \ 

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. 1 

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest — \ 
For Brutus is an honorable man; 

So are they all, all honorable men — j 

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. \ 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me: 1 

But Brutus says he was ambitious; •: 

And Brutus is an honorable man. j 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, \ 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: ■ 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? 1 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept. | 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: : 
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. j 

You all did see that on the Lupercal i 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown, , 

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? \ 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; J 

And, sure, he is an honorable man. ' 1 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, j 

But here I am so speak what I do know. ; 

You all did love him once, not without cause: i 

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? \ 
judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me; 
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 
And I must pause till it come back to me." 

First Citizen : 

"Methinks there is much reason in his sayings." i 

Second Citizen : \ 

"If thou consider rightly of the matter, \ 
Caesar has had great wrong." 

101 ' 



i 



Third Citizen : 

"Has he, masters? 
I fear there will a worse come in his place." 

Fourth Citizen : 

"Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown; 
Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious." 

First Citizen : 

"If it be found so, some will dear abide it." 
Second Citizen : 

"Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with weeping." 
Third Citizen : 

"There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony." 
Fourth Citizen : 

"Now mark him, he begins again to speak." 

Antony : 

"But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world; now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence. 

masters, if I were disposed to stir 

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong. 
Who, you all know, are honorable men: 

I will not do them wrong; I rather choose 

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you. 

Than I will wrong such honorable men. 

But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar; 

I found it in his closet, 'tis his will: 

Let but the commons hear this testament — 

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read — 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood. 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 

And, dying, mention it within their wills. 

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy 

Unto their issue." 

The effectiveness of the persuasion of Brutus is gone. Antony 
has won the multitude. He may have been a friend to Brutus but 
he was a greater friend to Caesar. And now the cry from the throng 
is, '*0h piteous spectacle! Oh noble Caesar! Oh woeful day! Trai- 
tor! Villians! Revenge!" Antony bids them pause and again illus- 
trates the perfection of his persuasion. 

He has taken the multitude from Brutus to Caesar and the mem- 
ories of Caesar. He has portrayed the virtues of Caesar without 
attacking Brutus; for Brutus ''is an honorable man.'' He has 
wrought the multitude to the highest pitch of loyalty to Caesar and 
of enmity to Brutus. And then hearing that possibly the end in 
view might not be attained through wild enthusiasm on the part of 

102 



the multitudes, he calms them and then brings them back again to 
less enthusiasm but to greater earnestness. 

''Good friends/' he says, ''sweet friends, let me not stir you up to 
such a sudden flood of mutiny." He tells them that he is no orator 
as Brutus is. But: 

"I only speak right on; 

I tell you that which you yourselves do know; 

Show you sweet Caesar's wounds! Poor, poor, dumb mouths, 

And bid them speak for me; but were I Brutus, 

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 

Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue 

In every wound of Caesar that should move 

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny." 

He did not need to put a tongue in every wound of Caesar. His 
words had been the tongue that was needed ; his the voice that spoke 
to Caesar and his the power of persuasion that changed the multi- 
tude from triumph over the death of Caesar to hatred and revenge 
on Brutus and Cassius and all conspirators. Not in all Shakespeare 
is the power of persuasiveness so magnificently exhibited as in Mark 
Antony. And Brutus dies at his own hand. 

This is the conclusion of the question submitted. His appre- 
ciation of the nobility of Brutus near the end of the tragedy points 
to nobility of character in himself. Standing by the dead body of 
Caesar, caking the place of Brutus on the rostrum, giving voice to 
all his powers of persuasion, can it be said that Mark Antony was 
expressive of any tribute of nobility in Brutus? Certainly not in 
that oration. He unchained the mob ; there hatred for Brutus had 
been fastened and perfected. 

He loved not Caesar less but Rome more, and because he loved 
Caesar he hated the murderers of Caesar. Hatred, however, does 
not involve inability to appreciate and acknowledge good qualities 
in the person hated. Brutus was dead. And Antony, going back 
to earlier days, recognizes that while Brutus stabbed Caesar, he did 
so because he believed it would be for the betterment of Rome and 
he pays him this tribute : 

"This was the noblest Roman of them all; 

All the conspirators save only he 

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar; 

He only, in a general hone&t thought. 

And common good to all made one of them. 

His life was gentle, and the elements 

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world: 'This was a man!' " 

With all his love for Caesar, with all his hatred for the taking off 
of Caesar and of those who brought it about, Mark Antony rises to 
the summits of his better nature and shows himself to be a man in 
the tribute paid to Brutus. 

103 



This might well be called the drama of persuasiveness. The 
persuasiveness of Brutus and his calling of the crowds of Rome to 
himself, to Cassius and to condemnation of Caesar. He does not 
seek the heights of eloquence. He knows the crowd; he has 
been an earnest and consistent friend to the commonalty and has the 
deepest appreciation of liberty; it is not a time for eloquence on his 
part; facts, as he saw them, presented to the excited Roman mob 
with but one question before it — would they be free or slaves? That 
which he had done had not been done because he lacked in love for 
Caesar but because his country was first to him. And it might have 
been well for Antony if he had made good his escape and left Brutus 
in control. 

Cassius was right in his fear of Antony — and what more eloquent 
introduction could there have been than the silent body of dead 
Caesar, with Brutus asking that Antony be heard and most silently 
eloquent in his going! He was sincere in his belief that that which 
he had done had been done for the betterment of Rome;, he loved 
Caesar, and so high had been his intents and purposes in the slaying 
of him he loved that he was willing to the farthest degree to depart 
and give over to Caesar's devoted follower clear path to portray all 
the good that was in the dead ruler. Earnest himself, not a politician 
as Cassius was, believing he had convinced the multitudes, and that 
they were sincere as he was, he leaves the field to eloquent Antony 
and to the silent eloquence of dead Caesar. 

And what a change came about! How perfectly Antony mar- 
shaled his facts; how perfectly he presented them and how com- 
pletely he changed the feelings of the crowds, one time hailing 
Brutus and through the persuasiveness of. Antony damning him 
for when all was known, even the very stones would rise in mutiny. 
And the climax of it! He is one with the throng; he speaks only of 
that which the crowd knew and held deep in its heart. Sweet 
Caesar's wound will speak all that is needed to be spoken: 
"But were I Brutus, 

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 

Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue 

In every wound of Caesar that would move 

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny." 



And from that time and moment, not all the eloquence of a 
thousand Brutuses could take the crowd from Antony! Verily 
Julius Caesar is the drama of persuasiveness — but there is a limit to 
time and a limit to space. Study it for yourselves and in yourselves, 
and the most wonderful and appealing beauties of the tragedy will 
present themselves to you. 

104 



HAMLET-LYCIDAS-THE ANCIENT MARINER. 




OLLOWING the lecture of Monday one of the class 
stated that while she had never held the climax 
in Hamlet to be in the prayer scene wherein 
Claudius shows faith in prayer, but his greater 
love for the goods of this world, as a high 
authority, had placed the climax in that scene 



she felt that the question discussed on Monday 
was altogether appropriate, as due respect must be paid to writers 
of prominence. There is no question made, nor any to be made, 
of the respect due to writers of prominence — "high authorities". 
But some writers are born prominent, some are made prominent, 
and others have prominence thrust upon them. There is another 
class— the class which thrusts prominence upon itself. Not all who 
break into the book world are worthy of place on the shelves of promi- 
nence and the subject is mentioned today only for the purpose of 
renewal of the advice to pay due respect to the authors of books or 
the writers of criticisms but, ever and always, to have and to hold 
right independence of thought; to think for ourselves; to judge for 
ourselves and to refrain from paying undue respect to opinions or 
views or criticisms, while always paying due respect. 

Speaking of writers who thrust prominence upon themselves and 
who, because of high positions held in the educational world, might 
be thought deserving of great respect for the opinions they hold, 
another of the class brought up the great, the high — the very high — 
code of ethics and rules of physical conduct given to a hungry and 
an expectant world by Frank W. Miller, holding the high and the 
responsible position of Superintendent of Public Instruction of the 
great State of Ohio. In his great work, viewing the ignorance of the 
Ohio people with profound sorrow. Superintendent Miller laid down 
his famous rules governing the departure of the citizen from a street 
car. ''When you are making ready to get off the street car,'' says 
the learned educator and superintendent of educators, ''place all 
your packages over your right arm, so that you will be able to grasp 
the bar with your left hand. Then step off with your right foot and 
follow it with your left." Now let it be distinctly understood that 
be it far from me to seek to equalize the profundity of knowledge of 
Educator Miller with the knowledge of the critic who places the 

105 



climax of Hamlet in the prayer scene. The matter is mentioned 
only to show that educators and critics thrust prominence upon 
themselves sometimes and that not all that is written in books is to 
be taken as true. You have, precisely, the same right to form an 
opinion as any critic of them all has and holds. I have not met one 
of the class of this year, nor of the class of last year, incapable of 
forming an independent opinion ; incapable of expressing the opinion 
as it should be expressed, or incapable of giving reasons for her 
opinion — and this is said in the greatest sincerity. It has not been 
the easiest of tasks to answer some of the questions asked — ^but it 
has been a pleasure. The question of the reason for the coming of 
the downfall of MacBeth coincident with the escape of Fleance was. 
not altogether new to me, but it had not been given the study it 
deserved and received after the question had been asked. Think 
for yourself in matters literary or rhetorical; judge for yourself of 
the extent of the powers of exposition, description, narration and 
persuasion in writer or in speaker. Pay due respect to the opinions 
of others — but remember that you, also, have studied and con- 
sidered. Remember this, without special reference to the question 
of the climax in Hamlet, that with very, very many there is too 
often a halting at the truth and a surrender of right rhetorical judg- 
ment in writers, because of fear that credit would go where it be- 
longs — to writers who hold fast to Faith and are not alone strength-^ 
ened thereby but in their writings greater beauty of expression is 
found, with decidedly stronger powers of persuasion. For a time, 
however, let us get away from tragedies, instructive though they 
are, and consider Milton's Lycidas. 

It is a poem of beauty marred by Puritanism; a poem of deep 
sorrow for the death of one who was dear to him, marred by gloom 
over ecclesiastical conditions; a poem of imagery, marred by the 
injection of subjects foreign to personal sorrow and belonging rather 
to a theological treatise rather than to an elegy. It is a poem of 
exquisite thought marred by the dominant personality of the author. 
It is inevitable that it should be so. In considering the work, it is. 
right and proper that there should be consideration of the author. 
A poet, Milton thought himself to be a logician. His "Treatise on 
Logic" contains in it but very few evidences of argumentation; he 
was without the power of persuasion. His work on 'True Religion, 
Heresy, Schism, Toleration and what may best be used Against 
the Growth of Popery," in itself and in its very title, shows a mind 
that was narrow, not because of innate narrowness, but because of 
innate dissatisfaction with all things that others did in matters 
ecclesiastical, seeing but little, if any, good in them all and finally 
through morbidness coming, no doubt to dissatisfaction with him- 

106 



self. While the dissatisfaction of Milton with the Church of Rome, 
the established Church of England — practically Catholic in form of 
discipline, though Protestant in doctrine and in teaching led him 
to the strictest of Puritanism, it did not destroy his splendor of words 
nor his powers of imagery. His great work, ^'Paradise Lost," viewed 
from the poetic or rhetorical side, is a work of unexcelled imagery; 
of deep thought and of enduring existence — but only so from the 
rhetorical of poetic point of observation and study. The pity of it 
is that in his Lycidas, there is the tone of Puritan animosity and the 
infusion of acerbity in matters affecting the conscience of men, 
matters in which and for which they were responsible to their 
Creator and matters which concerned not grief for one loved dearly 
and taken from life by a sudden and a violent death. In that, 
Milton shows lack of powers of persuasion and there will rise in the 
minds of many the thought — not a wholly unjust thought — that 
Milton observed and held fast his hostility of opinion against all 
who differed from him, much deeper in his heart than he held his 
beloved friend mourned in Lycidas. 

Edward King and Milton studied at Cambridge; they were 
friends and companions and of one and the same mind, and in his 
days at Cambridge, and for many years later, Milton did not know, 
at least did not excercise, the great powers of poetry he held within 
him. King was intended for the Church, as Milton was. It seems 
certain that King would have been ordained in the Church of Eng- 
land had it not been for his untimely death. Embarking on a visit 
to Ireland, the vessel was wrecked and King, with the majority of 
the passengers was drowned. Considering the close friendship ex- 
isting between Milton and King, and it was not only a close but a 
sincere friendship — a companionship of soul and mind, in fact, between 
sympathetic natures, the world would be inclined to look for a 
tribute to the dead, unmarred by slurs and stabs at the ancient 
Church and at the Church for which Milton was intended and into the 
ministry of which his friend would have entered had he lived. But 
it was not within the nature of Milton to lay aside that which tied 
his genius and held his talents within limited boundaries. 

It has been said of Lycidas that to understand it thoroughly, it 
must be read and read again. That is true, as a rule of all works 
of great writers. But it is especially true of Lycidas, notwithstand- 
ing its comparative brevity. In one of the issues of the minor works 
of Milton, it is written of Lycidas by Mark Pattison that: ''He who 
wishes to know whether he has a true taste for poetry or not, should 
consider whether he is highly delighted or not with the persual of 
Lycidas." That is rated as the highest of praise for the elegy. 
Assuredly it is a poem of beauty; a poem to be read; but the 

107 



reader whose mind has not been narrowed will rise from his reading 
with the wish that Milton had poured out the fulness of his soul, 
over the death of his dear friend, in words that spoke to the heart 
directly, rather than in the tongue of the classics through the mind 
and the soul and thence into the heart. He would prefer an elegy 
unconnected with injections of religious beliefs or non-beliefs and 
an elegy in which the Father of all would be invoked rather than 
invocations to Fauns and Satyrs, Nymphs and Neptune. But let it 
be viewed from the literary side. His opening, his invocation, is 
most beautiful, touching and heart-appealing: 

"Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,- 
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 
And with forced fingers rude, 
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, 
Compels me to disturb your season due: 
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer: 
Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew 
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, .and welter to the parching wind. 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 
Begin then. Sisters of the sacred well, 
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring, 
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. 
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse, 
So may some gentle Muse 
With lucky words favor my destined urn. 
And as he passes, turn 
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!" 

There is pathos there; beauty of expression; depth of thought; 
sorrow and a eulogy deserved and accorded. Bitter constraint and 
sadness bid him to disturb the laurel and the myrtel — ^for Lycidas 
is dead and none remains like unto him. But the laurel will be gener- 
ous and the myrtle kindly for who would not sing for Lycidas? 
And the laurel and the myrtle know that upon the waters of the sea 
his body must not float unmourned and he has come to pay tribute 
to the dead. The sea holds Lycidas fast in its cruel and unyielding 
grasp — but it cannot take from earth the memory of the dead. 
While there is something too much of stateliness in his pardon asked 
of the laurel and the myrtle, there comes from the heart that tender- 
est of appeals to them: *'Who would not weep for Lycidas?" Had 
Milton halted there; or had he pursued the path of manly and heart- 
spoken tribute to Lycidas throughout his elegy it would have stood 
a masterpiece of English literature of the classic days. 

108 



-I 
I 

\ 
;i 

It is a masterpiece, however. There is expression in the Hnes 1 

wherein Milton tells of the boyhood days of himself and his friend. \ 

Nursed they were upon the self same hill; they drove afield to- \ 

gether; their flocks were as one, fattening them on the self same hill. ■ 

One they were from the fresh dews of night until the rising of the ■ 

evening star. And Nymphs and Fauns and Satyrs danced to the j 

music of the oaten pipe, with old Damaetus rejoicing in their song — | 

and who Damaetus was is not told but believed to refer to one of i 

the Fellows of Christ's College at Cambridge. And when Milton, \ 

setting aside for the moment his Puritanism, describes so perfectly | 

and with so great simplicity of expression, their early fellowship, ^ 

his soul laments and mourns : i 

"But, Oh! The heavy change, now thou art gone, \ 

Now thou art gone and never must return!" \ 

And life is dark for him. The memory of the hills and the vales ,^ 1 

the feeding of the flocks, the coming of the star of evening — all in his j 

faithfully loving memory — but now, thou art gone and never to re- | 

turn. For him in after life there was to be a void, not alone because i 

of the going of his friend, but for the tragic manner of his death. 1 

And he invokes the nymphs again and refers to the mysterious J 

Keltic river Dee, for Lycidas was dear unto them as he was unto j 

Milton. And why did they allow the tragedy of his death? Why | 

were they not on the watch? i 

"Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep i 

Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? j 

For neither were ye playing on the steep, ' I 

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, ; 

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, \ 

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: i 

Ay me! I fondly dream! ] 

'Had ye been there,' — for what could that have done? | 

What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, j 

The Muse herself for her enchanting son, i 
Whom universal nature did lament. 
When by the rout that made the hideous roar, 

His gory visage down the stream was sent, ' 

' Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? j 

Classic, classic Milton. Puritan throughout! But King was i 

classic with him. Together they had not only climbed the hills and j 

roamed the pastures with their flocks, absorbing the beauties of \ 

Nature and had piped and danced together, but in the fields of j 

classic Cambridge they had studied and read and scanned and ] 

translated and had gone down together to the depths of the beauties j 

of Virgil, the grandeur of Homer, the eloquence and the bitterness j 

of Cicero and the flowered fields of Sallust. And Milton, mourning j 

109 i 



i 



for his friend invokes the nymphs and the satyrs and the fauns of 
the classics, not beheving in them but using them because his soul 
was in communion with the spirit of his friend and he talked in the 
language of their Cambridge days for it would be understood by 
King and go to his heart. There is forgiveness for Milton in his 
invocation of the mythological creations. And he returns to the 
fate of his friend, ordained by fate as Milton in his Calvinism, though 
he knew not that he possessed it at that time, believed and so he ex- 
presses the fallacy of looking to the minors of mythology — what 
could they have done? Nothing! The blind Fury has cut the thread 
of the life of one so dear unto him. The blind Fury has slit the thin 
spun life and only mourning for his friend and recognition and con- 
stant memory of his nobility of soul and mind is for him ! Fame and 
the praise due to his friend remain: 

"Comes the blind Fury, with the abhored shears, 
And sKts the thin spun Hfe. 'But not the praise' 
Phoebus repKed, and touched my trembhng ears: 
'Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
Nor in the glistening foil, 
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies. 
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
And perfect witness of all- judging Jove; 
As he pronounces lastly on each deed; 
Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.' " 

Therein is the first evidence presented that Milton held to any 
faith of Christianity. Though it is ''Jove'' who is the perfect wit- 
ness, yet he gives voice to the element of Faith remaining within him 
and though it is Phoebus who consoles and uplifts him, Milton gives 
recognition of the vanity of all earthly things. Fame is not a growth 
of earthly soil and in Heaven the right expectancy of Fame is to 
be found. It is a relief. It is somewhat harsh to say of Milton's 
style that it is stilted. But there is too much of himself in his 
greater poems, with his personality playing a right part in 
Lycidas, for it is heart that is affected, and he portrays its 
suffering most admirably. Nevertheless there is in Milton an 
exceedingly high plane — an expression somewhat more dignified than 
the attribute of stiltedness. If we would follow Milton we must 
ascend to him. He will not come down to us; neither will he allow 
us a stopping place after we have attained his height. We must 
continue with him or fall to the ground. That is one of the diffi- 
culties in Lycidas, and they begin to make more prominent appear- 
ance after he excuses the nymphs for not seeking to save his friend 
and after he describes the death upon the sea. 



110 



"O, fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood, 
Smooth sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, 
That strain I heard was of a higher mood: 
But now my oat proceeds. 
And listens to the Herald of the sea 
That came in Neptune's plea; 
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds. 
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? 
And questioned every gust of rugged wings 
That blows from off each beaked promotory. 
They knew not of his story; 
And sage Hippotades their answer brings, 
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed: 
The air was calm, and on the level brine 
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. 
It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, 
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 

Then comes his Puritanism — forgetful of the object of his elegy 
he begins his attacks on creeds and ecclesiastics and ecclesiasticism^ 
for his soul was troubled and there was nothing right to him in the 
Catholic Church, nor in the Church of England, nor in any manner 
or form of Faith of which he was not or could not be the first con-^ 
troller and director. And so he brings St. Peter to the front with 
two keys. One wherewith he could open the gates of Heaven to 
those who came to them and the other, the iron key, with which he 
could close them to others who reached the gates but were unworthy 
of admission. Covert attacks on the Church are in the lines attribut- 
ed to St. Peter. The Church is described as ''the grim wolf" who 
daily devours space and nothing said. But there is a return to 
Lycidas — a showing that, after all, Milton had a heart in which 
another than himself could come, yet knowing that had King lived 
he would have become one of the clergy of the Established Church 
for which Milton, himself, had been intended. He does more — he 
gives plain evidence that deep in his heart there were still remnants 
of Faith, as there ever was in his soul; magnificently used descriptive 
qualities, mastery of language and flights of genius to the highest 
of the summits. He has discoursed of Lycidas; he has mourned 
him; he has almost prayed for him; he has rebuked the nymphs 
and has excused them; he has obtained earthly fame as of slight, 
if any, value. He has scored the gross neglect of duty of clergy and 
of the hierarchy of the Established Church; he has sought to smear 
the fair name and face of the Church; he has shown his bitter and 
his better qualities. He has had his say on things ecclesiastic and 
is satisfied. So he returns to Lycidas again, still clad in the robe of 
the classic scholar and speaking from the heights unto his heart and 
to the Church and the people of England : 

111 



"'Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more. 
For, Lycidas, your sorrow is not dead. 
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. 
So sinks the day star in the ocean bed, 
And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 
And tricks his beams and with new spangled ore 
Flames in the forehead of the sky; 
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high. 
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. 
Where, other groves and other streams along. 
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves. 
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song. 
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 
There entertain him all the Saints above. 
In solemn troops, and sweet societies. 
That sing, and singing in their glory move. 
And wipe the tears forever from his eyes. 
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; 
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore. 
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 
To all that wander in that perilous flood. 

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills. 
While the still morn went out with sandals gray: 
He touched the tender stops of various quills. 
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: 
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills. 
And now was dropt into the western bay. 
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: 
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new." 



To quote Mark Patterson again: ''He who wishes to know 
whether he has a true taste for poetry or not, should consider whether 
lie is highly delighted or not within the perusal of Milton's 'Lycidas.'" 
It is also said in order to understand Lycidas, it should be read and 
re-read and read again. It is a classic certainly, marred with the 
faults pointed out as all things are marred by too great devotion to 
personality with forge tfulness of good in others with bigotry as Mil- 
ton showed it, prevailing throughout Lycidas. Yet in his concluding 
lines he compares the sudden and the tragic death of Lycidas to the 
sinking of the day-star in the ocean, rising again to renewed light and 
beauty. So Lycidas had sunk under the waves but had mounted high 
through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. Therein is the 
resurrection and life Eternal. The fame of Lycidas was deserved 
and might endure but that was of little moment. So the uncouth 
swain had sung to the oaks and rills but the sun had dropped into 
the western bay and the uncouth swain arising tomorrow went to 
fresh woods and pastures new. There are beauties beyond doubt 

112 



in Lycidas, and there are blots. It is a classic worth reading and 
worth studying. The beauties of the elegy will impress themselves 
strongly and may overshadow the defects save one defect. The 
defect of intolerance towards those who happened to hold opinions^ 
differing from the opinions of Milton. 



Another of the class asks the reason for the great popularity of 
the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Its popularity is very largely 
due to the great touch of human nature prevalent throughout; 
to the wierd story and perfectly fitting language in which it is told ; 
to the ease of the rhyme; the story of wrong done and of reparation 
and punishment and very largely to the fact that Coleridge in his 
his very first verse, so completely captures the attention of the reader. 
There is a wedding at hand. The bridegroom's doors are open; the 
guests have assembled. The Ancient Mariner with his long, grey 
beard and glittering eyes stops the next of kin : 

"It is an ancient Mariner 
And he stoppeth one of three. 
- 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, 
Now wherefore stopst thou me?' " 

The Ancient Mariner begins to tell his story. 'There was a 
ship," quoth he, and he holds the next of kin with his glittering eye 
listening to the tale of the Ancient Mariner as a three-year-old child 
listens to a tale. Coleridge again holds the attention of his reader 
through compelling the wedding guest to sit upon a stone. "He 
cannot choose but hear." The Ancient Mariner then begins his talk 
and while the loud bassoon sends its notes upon the listening air, 
the bride passes into the hall ; the wedding guest beats his breast 
yet he cannot chose but listen. The wonderfully descriptive power 
of expression in Coleridge is another element in the popularity — 
the holding popularity of the rhyme. Landsman know nothing or 
very little of the perils of the ocean and less of the perils of the 
Arctics. Coleridge presents both magnificently and in detail with- 
out, however, tiring the reader but, on the contrary, fascinating him. 

"The ice was here, the ice was there, 
The ice was all around. 

It cracked and growled and roared and howled 
Like voices in a swound." 

The Albatross comes. 

"God save the ancient Mariner! 
From the fiends that plague thee thus! 
Why look'st thou so — with my cross-bow 
I shot the Albatross." 

113 



He knew that he had done a helhsh thing and that woe would 
come to the ship. And, 

"Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropt down 
'Twas sad as sad could be. 
And we did speak only to break 
The silence of the sea." 

"Day after day, day after day 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

"Water, water, everywhere 
And all the boards did shrink; 
Water, water, everywhere 
Nor any drop to drink." 

"The very deep did rot; oh, Christ! 
That ever this should be! 
Yea, slimy things did fall with legs 
Upon the slimy sea." 

"About, about, in reel and rout 
The death fires danced at night. 
The water, like witch's oils. 
Burned green and blue and white." 

"And every tongue through utter drought 
Was withered at the root; 
We could not speak, no more than if 
We had been choked with soot. 

"Aye, welladay! What evil looks 
Had I from old and young! 
Instead of the cross, the Albatross 
About my neck was hung." 



There could not have been more perfect description given than 
that which the Ancient Mariner gives to the unwilling wedding 
guest. It is homely in language; it is perfect in detail; it is con- 
cise but complete. We can see the wedding guest and the Ancient 
Mariner sitting upon the stone; we can hear the music of the wed- 
ding feast; we can see the wild eye of the Ancient Mariner as he 
tells the story of the shooting of the Albatross, the bird of good omen, 
and the punishment inflicted on him of the hanging the dead body 
of the bird about his neck instead of the cross. 

So weird is the story that the wedding guest fears the Ancient 
Mariner; he fears the skinny hand; the Mariner is long and lank 
and brown but the Ancient Mariner tells him, 'Tear not thou wedding 
guest, this body dropped not down." He tells how he looked to 

114 



Heaven and tried to pray — ^just as Claudius tried to pray — but when- 
ever a prayer gushed from his heart a wicked whisper would come 
and his heart would dry. He sees living things all around him and,, 

"Oh, happy living things! no tongue 
Their beauty might declare: 
A spring of love gushed from my heart 
And I blessed them unaware. 

Sure, my kind saint took pity on me 
And I blessed them unaware. 

The selfsame moment I could pray 
And from my neck so free 
The Albatross fell off, and sunk 
Like lead into the sea." 

Then there comes from the Ancient Mariner, relieved of the 
punishment his fellows had inflicted on him, this exquisitely beau- 
tiful tribute to our Blessed Lady: 

"0 sleep! It is a gentle thing 
Beloved from pole to pole! 
To Mary Queen the praise be given! 
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven 
That came into my soul." 

He proceeds with his description of the terrors of the sea and how, 
though the wind never reached the ship, it moved on most speedily 
and how, beneath the lightning and the moon, the dead around him 
groaned. The helmsmen, dead, steered the ship yet never a breeze 
there was; the mariners worked the ropes, raising their limbs like 
lifeless tools, 'Ve were a ghastly crew." Again the wedding guest 
fears him. The Ancient Mariner tells him that it was not a troupe 
of souls that fled the pain but a troupe of blessed spirits. To quote 
the entire poem is impossible but the concluding lines are too beau- 
tiful to be omitted. The Ancient Mariner tells the wedding guest: 

"Oh wedding guest! This soul hath been 
Alone on a wide, wide sea; 
So lonely 'twas that God Himself 
Scarce seemed there to be. 

Oh, sweeter than the marriage feast 
'Tis sweeter far to me. 
To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company." 

"To walk together to the kirk, 
And all together pray, 
While each to his great Father bends. 
Old men and babes and loving friends 
And youths and maidens gay! 



115 



Farewell! Farewell! but this I tell 
To thee, thou wedding guest! 
He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 

He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small; 
For the dear God who loveth us 
He made and loveth all. 

The Mariner whose eye is bright 
Whose beard with age is hoar 
Is gone; and now the wedding guest 
Turned from the bridegroom's door. 

He went like one that hath been stunned 
And is of sense forlorn. 
A sadder and a wiser man 
He rose the morrow morn." 

The quotations made, and the entire poem, of Hke high grade 
and order, are enough to show in themselves, the reason for the great 
popularity of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. There is serious- 
ness, approached to tragedy, the commission of a crime against all 
ocean lore in the shooting of the Albatross. There is magnificence in 
the descriptive qualities of the Rime; there is nothing of the per- 
sonality of Coleridge. It is a story of wildness of the ocean; of 
repentance of the Mariner and his persuasiveness in the manner in 
which he holds the wedding guest is perfect in detail. He not only 
holds the wedding guest but he holds the public and will continue to 
hold it. In the climax where he lays down the fundamentl prin- 
ciples on which life should be based — loving all things, both great 
and small, as our dear Lord who loveth us and who made and loveth 
all — there is close approach to perfection of expression. It is a 
poem containing the four elements of rhetoric, exposition, narration, 
description and persuasion. It is tedious in no single line; it is 
attractive throughout; it is reverential and while the wedding 
guest, the next of kin, was deprived of the pleasure he had antici- 
pated, the great lessons he received from the Ancient Mariner sunk 
so deeply into his heart that on the morrow morn he rose a wiser 
and a better man. 



This is not to be taken as a complete exposition of the beauties 
of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. As we read it we see new 
beauties. As we wonder through the forests, or in the gardens 
there is ever something new attracting us. We never will judge 
rightly of the glorious beauties of Nature until we have passed from 
life for they are part of the love of the good God who made us and 

116 



who loveth all, both great and small. The Ancient Mariner had not 
seen the beauties of Nature. His had seen the sights and the 
scenes of the grandeurs of Nature and he had offended against sea- 
lore. But when he saw ''the living things" of which no tongue 
might declare their beauty, there came a spring of love out of his 
heart and he blessed them unaware! His kind saint had taken pity 
on him and the blessing came from his heart. The particularly 
strong feature of the Rime is in the descriptive powers of the Mariner; 
perfectly is every scene depicted and abiding in the memory of all 
who read and study the poem, or the Rime, to its depths. 

As we are on the subject of description, as Coleridge illustrates 
it, it will be appropriate to cite another instance in another poet of 
other genius than Coleridge and of great powers of thought. In 
Childe Harold, Byron in one line describes mosr perfectly and ap- 
pealingly, the vanity of all things earthly, their transient nature 
and the ease with which Time works havoc on things man has 
created, or built, in the vain hope that they will last for all time. 
In the fourth canto he speaks of Rome : 

"0, Rome, my country! City of the soul 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee! 
Lone mother of dead empires! and control 
In their shut breasts, their petty misery! 
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples. Ye 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet, as fragile as our clay!" 

It is all expressed in that one line! ''A world is at our feet, as 
fragile as our clay!" 

Build as man may, his works are but for time and brief time! 
No matter what his genius, his talent, his determination, his perse- 
verance, or the material with which he builds his mighty works and 
imagines them everlasting! Rome, the mistress of the world ; Rome, 
carrying her banners at the head of her legions and conquering the 
world from Italy to England, from Gaul to Germany and ruling with 
an iron hand and with an iron rod within that hand to scourge the 
nations to obedience! Building her temples, her mausoleums, her 
walls and her fortresses; fastening her code of laws upon the con- 
quered becomes the Niobe of Nations and when they whose evils 
are but for a day are bidden to the view of the ruins of Rome, the 
capital, what is there before him? Not alone the shriek of the owl, 
the mourning of the cypress, steps of broken thrones and temples! 
There is at his feet a world as fragile as our clay! In that one line 
Byron describes the limits to which man may go but beyond which 

117 



man may not pass, in perfection of description. Man, living but for 
few short days, imagines that which he built of stone, of brass, of 
clay will be everlasting, as he is not, sees but a world no more lasting 
than his fragile clay! As weak as man is weak; no stronger than 
man nor more enduring; a thing of today but not of tomorrow. 
Persuasion was no part of Byron's great genius as expression was. 
But in that one line persuaion is found in perfection — persuasion 
to lead to loftier ideals, though it is within the bounds of all proba- 
bility that Byron was not so greatly impressed with the great lesson 
he was teaching in his grandly expressive line, but was mourning 
for the departed glories of ancient Rome. Be his intent what it 
may have been, the expression of the fragile qualities of the great 
works of man, even as man's clay was fragile, is perfect. The 
greatest element of rhetoric is in the power of persuasion, but often 
in the expression of description there is the expression also of per- 
suasion to him who studies and thinks after study. 



118 



COMEDY AND TRAGEDY-LYCIDAS. 



THIRTEENTH CORINTHIANS. 

l^^^^^I^HAT is the essential difference between a comedy 
^ ^3) ^ tragedy? 

The difference between the brightness of the 
sun and the darkness of the storm clouds. The 
difference between the event that brings a smile 
from the heart to the eyes, happy words and 
greetings to the lips and the event that brings 
sorrow to the soul, grief to the heart, tears to the eyes and pathos 
in consolation from the friend. The comedy and the tragedy differ 
as the gambols of the rabbit in the fields differ from the snarl of the 
wildcat waiting in the woods; the difference between the event 
that brings forgetfulness of the miseries of the poor, the wail of the 
lost child, the funeral procession from the church and the event 
that robs us of that which we hold dear; of things for which we 
rightly and expectantly hoped; of successes overthrown and dis- 
covery that the friend on whom we leaned and in whom we trusted 
was not a broken reed but of a false heart. 

In comedy there is a smile or the certainty of a smile; a laugh 
and the certainty of rest from thinking of the troubles we had today 
and the troubles we are expecting tomorrow. Whether it be in 
the time of winter and frosts and snows and bitter cold there is 
restfulness in the comedy. The actors in the comedy — not neces- 
sarily in the comedy of the stage but in the comedies in actual life — 
may meet with mishaps, but the mishap is not one extending be- 
yond themselves nor laying a heavy hand upon them. There is a 
smile on the face of the character in action and his mishaps, if not 
caused by his own blundersome movements, bear within themselves 
another laugh and an emerging from the dust or the water or the 
snows without injuries to any one but with the audience in the 
theatre or the observer on the street or in the home, laughing no 
more heartily than the one who brought about the laugh. The 
comedy is wholesome in its brightness. It bears within it no lesson, 
as a rule. But there may be too much of schooling and the tendency 
to play hookey from the actualities of life is as strong in the man or 
in the woman as it is in Jimmie or Jack. The adult seeks the 
comedy as he seeks a rest from the cares of business life and he is 

119 




entitled to his day off or his hour off, as Jack or as Jimmie is not 
entitled to his hookey and goes back to school next morning happy 
in the knowledge that he has escaped punishment at home but 
expecting it at the hands of his teacher. There may come a semi- 
tragedy for Jimmie at the hands of his teacher, but the damage will 
not be serious. Neither will it overcome in Jimmie the intent to 
play hookey at the first available opportunity. And that feeling 
is in Jimmie's father who seeks a comedy on the stage, or finds it 
in his own good nature and in the good nature and happy dispositions 
of his associates. The comedy, however, is a thing of a day. A 
small quantity of it is, as a rule, sufficient. There is a smile in the 
comedy. There is no frown upon it, nor any sulking. Micawber 
was a comedy. After giving his note to the confiding gentleman 
who had loaned him twenty pounds, he felt himself able -again to 
walk erect before his fellowmen and he walked so high as to over- 
look the step and his vaulting ambition took him to the foot and 
brought him back to the ordinary walks of life — and other surround- 
ings. Mrs. Nickleby was another comedy in all things she did, 
said, thought or accomplished. 

The comedy is a source of pleasure and of rest. But, with the 
exception of the character comedies of Dickens, it is a thing soon 
forgotten. Humor is not continuously abiding; at least not along 
the same lines. It teaches no great lesson. It takes us from the 
lessons taught in life and in the things of life. The comedian, 
however — that is to say the individual enjoying the comedies as 
he sees them — is not given to the blues. He sees the brighter 
things of life and appreciates them from the Street of the Smile. 
As a rule the Street of Sorrow has nothing in its lessons appreci- 
ated by him. Not that he is unkindly — but he is of the opinion 
that tomorrow can take care of itself and his smile continues. 

The comedy is defined as a dramatic representation of lively or 
amusing incidents; droll characters; a drama of entertainment; 
an aniusing story, or one ending happily. That is the dictionary 
interpretation of the comedy. I take it, however, that the question 
asked a fuller definition of the essential differences between a comedy 
and a tragedy. One other feature attaching to the comedy may be 
noted with interest. In great tragedies, with exceptions of course, 
we find a comedian or a fool — as the ancient term was. There is 
none in MacBeth, but there is in Hamlet. Polonius was a comedy, 
or closely approaching a comedy. In the drama of the Merchant of 
Venice — though it is more appropriate to call it a tragedy, even 
though blood were not spilled nor life taken in it — there is Launcelot 
Gobbo and Shakespeare might have omitted him without injury. 



120 



The tragedy is thus defined in the dictionary: 'The form of 
drama in which the theme is solemn, lofty or pathetic; a series of 
acts generally involving a fatal issue of a hopeless struggle ; opposed 
to comedy; a fatal event or course of events; murder, especially 
when involving dramatic incidents; subjected to extreme and pro- 
tracted sufferings; teaches us lessons of avoidance". The tragedy 
is not a thing we may follow in its actions. It teaches us avoid- 
ance. We may follow the comedy in its acts without serious, if 
any harm, if our minds incline in that direction. Pardon me, if to 
the definition of the dictionary I add another meaning. In addition 
to murder, or hopeless struggles, or fatal events we must not omit 
the element of treachery, dominating the bloody acts to which 
attention is drawn to the exclusion of sight or mental vision of the 
element that brought about the slayings. 

In the tragedy there is no sunshine; there is no happiness; there 
is nothing from which happiness or sunshine can rightly be expected. 
There is no sunshine or any happiness in Julius Caesar; none in 
MacBeth; none in Hamlet; none in Othello. If there come a 
break in the clouds, there is ever another cloud following and the 
pathos of the tragedy receives greater force in the fact of disap- 
pointment the momentary glimpse of the sun has brought to us. 
The tragedy teaches ; the comedy amuses; the tragedy goes to the 
deepest feelings, emotions and conscience of man. The comedy 
dives to his sense of humor, brings a laugh, and is forgotten. The 
comedy is the blue jay, with its impudent antics; its quick dives; 
its close approach and its saucy manner and its jubilant notes as it 
flies back to the thick growth of honey-suckle or into the grape 
arbors. The tragedy is the whipporwill, with its melancholy note, 
persistent, mournful and pathetic — even deeper in its mournful 
tones when at a distance in the thick woods or in the solitary elm 
by the side of the pond. We forget the blue jay when he flies away; 
we remember the melancholy note of the whippoorwill into the night. 
We welcome back the saucy jay and we regret that the night is so 
dark or the woods so thick that we can not sally forth and put an 
end to the whippoorwill. We may avoid comedy; we can not escape 
tragedy. It is in the world and of the world. If it is not with us, 
it is with our neighbor. If it was not of yesterday, it will be of 
today and if not of today it will be of tomorrow — and while man 
holds his mad ambitions, his yearning to exceed his neighbor, 
his craze for wealth, his intense desire for advancement in position, 
just so long will tragedies, not alone of blood but of ambition and 
of treachery, continue. As the units are, so is the entire framework 
of a building. Where the units are strong, well-seasoned, well- 
fitted and well put together there will be unity throughout in main- 

121 



taining the superstructure and it will be abiding and useful and 
wholesome and the inmates will live and move and have their being 
in safety. 

Comedy does not spring from envy, nor from evil intents and 
purposes; tragedy does. There is no evil intent nor any wrong in 
*'The Comedy of Errors". There is evil springing from mad ambitions, 
or from other malignant sources in each and every one of the trage- 
dies we have considered during the present course of lectures — 
from King John down to Henry VIII., from King Lear to Caesar 
and to the Merchant of Venice. Might it not be said that the 
essential difference between comedy and tragedy is in the fact that 
one comes from the desire of man for a smile and a kindly thought, 
while the other rises from an evil intent against our neighbor? I 
am speaking of tragedies as I understand the questioner intended to 
be understood. There are, of course, tragedies not brought about 
by evil intent of man against his neighbor — the tragedy at Chicago, 
is a most pathetic illustration of the fact. So was the tragedy of the 
deaths in Cincinnati and in the neighborhood during the upheaving 
of the elements on the night of July 7th. It was not, however, of 
that class of tragedies the question was submitted. They were 
acts of the Almighty. Concluding the answer to the question, it 
may be said that the comedy comes from the kindlier disposition of 
man; the tragedy from his baser qualities; the comedy because 
there is a smile in his heart; the tragedy because he views the blood 
upon his hands merely as an evidence of the means he used in at- 
taining his end. There is no great lesson projected as attainable 
through the comedy. The great lesson of the tragedy is in the 
teachings of the easy fallings of man when he imagines wealth, or 
rank, or power or station is within his grasp — and the lessons others 
are to learn from the tragedy are the lessons of the good that comes 
from right conduct and the evils and the punishments that come to 
him who makes standards of conduct for himself without regard 
standards fixed impregnably by the Almighty. 



*'Do you think any event, any scene in Hamlet — an episode is a 
part that does not enter into the integral structure of the piece?'' 

It may be so — but if so the episode not a part of the integral 
structure has not impressed itself upon the tablets of my memory. 

Some objection has been advanced against the grave-digger scene, 
wherein the two clowns, as they are called, discourse of things and 
events and subjects not usually within the brain scope of their class 
in the age in which they lived; there is no particular connection 

122 



with the theme of the tragedy, but their talk is of graves and length 
of life, with the grave-digger enunciating the true condition when he 
says that the grave-maker is the builder whose work lasts longer 
than the work of any other builder. He sends out his companion 
for a switch of liquor and falls to singing as he digs the grave for the 
fair Ophelia. Hamlet, entering with Horatio, is inclined to think 
the fellow had no feeling of his business, singing as he did and 
Horatio utters a truth very often disregarded — that custom had 
made it in the grave-digger a business of easiness. In other words, 
true today, we are very often, sometimes it might be said, too often 
influenced by environment and lose sight of the better elements 
because of that environment and only awaken to right thoughts 
when our attention is called from our ordinary occupation. If 
Hamlet had but known for whom the grave was being dug, the 
roughness would have come between him and the callous digger of 
the grave. The skulls are thrown up from the grave and Hamlet 
takes on himself the air and the manner and the language of a 
philosopher. 

Hamlet. — 

"There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be 
his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does 
he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, 
and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's 
time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his 
double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of 
his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him 
no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a 
pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; 
and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?" 

This, while it may not have had any direct bearing on the chief 
elements of the tragedy, was, nevertheless, peculiarly characteristic 
of Hamlet and detracts nothing from the great tragedy. 

The conversation between him and the grave-digger continues 
with the clown telHng him that: ^ "Of all the days of the year I 
came t' it that day our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras". 
He can not tell the day but he knows it was the day on which young 
Hamlet was born — the Hamlet that had been sent to England be- 
cause he was mad. He would recover his wits over there and if 
he did not, it was no great matter for the men over there were as 
mad as he was and so it goes on, without any direct influence upon 
the theme until Hamlet picks up the skull of Yorick, the King's 
jester. But while there is no direct connection with the theme it was 
completely introductory — and it is not too lengthy — to the coming 
in of the mourners, among them the King and the Queen and the 

123 



pall-bearers with the body of the fair Ophelia, with the struggle in 
the grave between Hamlet and Laertes. It was coherent in the 
fact that it was a rise from the entry of Hamlet, with Horatio, not 
knowing of the tragic death of Ophelia — a rise from the grave- 
digger, the clown, to the musings of Hamlet over the skull of the 
lawyer and over the skull of Yorick to the grave scene and his 
challenge to Laertes : 

King.— 

**0b he is mad, Laertes." , 
Queen. — 

"For love of God, forbear him." 

Hamlet. — 

. 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do: 

Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself? 

Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile? 

I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine? 

To outface me with leaping in her grave? 

Be buried quick with her, and so will I: 

And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw 

Millions of acres on us, till our ground, 

Singeing his pate against the burning zone, 

Make Ossa like a wart Nay, an thou'lt mouth, 

I'll rant as well as thou." 

If Hamlet, with Horatio, had entered within the graveyard as 
the funeral procession entered, there would have been too great 
abruptness and Shakespeare is not at fault in that particular in any 
one of his works. I do not recall any event in Hamlet, any scene 
that does not enter into the integral structure of the tragedy. If the 
Sister asking the question is of the opinion that such an episode 
exists, it would be a pleasure to me to have her point it out. The 
scene in the graveyard in its preliminaries is the one scene to which I 
have heard objection and the objection came from a dramatic critic. 



Are there qualities in Lycidas that justify calhng it "the high 
water-mark" of English lyrical poetry? That depends, and very 
largely depends on the point from which we view it. To quote 
Patterson again in his assertion that: 'He who wishes to know 
whether he has a true taste for poetry or not, should consider whether 
he is highly delighted or not with the perusal of Milton's Lycidas.' 
In other and plain words — if you are delighted with Milton's Lycidas, 
you have a true taste for poetry. If you are not highly delighted 
with it, then your taste for poetry is not worthy of note. 

124 



Patterson's test is, however, the test of one who could see noth- 
ing but each and every element of the perfection of genius, style, 
thought, expression and sincerity in Milton. The question is not 
so easily answered as it might appear. My judgment would be in 
the negative. We must consider the lyric in its form and metre, 
its arrangement, in its adherence to the subject, in its feeling and in 
its climax. As a lyric it can not be questioned that Milton exhibited 
qualities of sublimity in Lycidas. When he treats of Lycidas his 
heart is at its fullest — not a doubt of it — but is not the beauty of the 
lyric marred in the fact that Milton could not hold his heart with 
the heart of his dead friend, but must depart from it in order to 
show his deep animosity to matters of ecclesiastical nature, not in 
the least connected with Lycidas, nor bearing upon his tragic death, 
nor on the sorrow it brought to Milton? Does the frame make the 
picture beautiful? And what picture does Milton present to us in 
his gloriously wrought frame? 

Is it the picture of his dead friend alone? Is it the picture of a 
grieving heart and mourning soul alone? Are we not led to the 
belief that, grieve as he might for his dead friend taken from him so 
tragically, he held his own views and aims and objects and ani- 
mosities more deeply in his heart and soul? Is not the memory 
of his friend covered over with his plainly announced intention in 
Lycidas to break away from his former faiths and cling to the cold 
Puritanism? There are, indeed, many exquisitely expressed mean- 
ings in Lycidas; at times his genius is exalted and he uses it in 
right way and forcefully. 

Merely as a lyric Lycidas will ever rank high — very high, in-, 
deed — but, because of the mixture of grief and love for his friend 
Lycidas, with his deepening breaking away from the Faith he once 
held and seeing nothing good in that with which he had been inti- 
mately and closely associated, Lycidas will not be held as "the high 
water-mark" of English lyrical poetry. It may be that prejudices 
against it will arise because of the reasons I have suggested — and 
that prejudice is not absent from myself — but if the prejudice arises 
it will be because Milton himself, laid the foundations for them. 
He had the right to change his Faith ; he was gifted, as all are, with 
free will and he would be held responsible for his acts. But his 
commingling of two elements, absolutely different, grief for his 
friend and announcement of his proposed change with slurs and slaps 
at that which he was leaving, are faults not easily overlooked. 

In fact the intensity of the Puritanism of Milton in all things 
is, and ever will tend to deteriorate from the rank among the great 
poets of the world to which, otherwise, he would be entitled. Viewed 
purely as a lyric, Lycidas is great. Taking into consideration the 

125 



faults with which Milton loaded it in the subject matters — not the 
one subject matter appropriate to it — it is difficult to accord to it 
the high place suggested in the question. If he had paid tribute to 
his friend as Tennyson did to Edward Hallam ; if he had seen 
King and only King and the tragedy of his death and given full 
vent to his poetic genius, the question would be more easily answered. 
But even in that event, to assign it a place as the ''high water-mark 
of English lyrical poetry" would have caused a halt in the verdict 
of the jury. Consider also the depth of his grief. When all is 
done; when he has mourned for Lycidas; when he has arraigned 
the nymphs and exculpates them; when he slaps his Church, its 
ministers and its management, what is it? Simply that on the 
morrow he will enter into fresh fields and pastures new! In that 
one line he shows the stoic in him — and stoicism and highest genius 
are compatible. 



"What literary qualities are most conspicuous in the thirteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians?'' Let us read it: 

. ''If I speak with the tongues of angels and have not charity, I 
am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; and if I 
should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowl- 
edge; and if I should have all facts, so that I could remove moun- 
tains and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I would distribute 
all my goods to the poor and if I should deliver my body to be burned, 
and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, 
is kind; charity envieth not, desireth not perversely; is not puffed 
up. Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to 
anger, thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth 
with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things. Charity never falleth away; whether 
prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall close, or knowledge 
shall be destroyed. For we know in part and prophecy in part. 
But when that which is perfect shall come, that which is in part 
shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I 
understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a 
man I put away the things of a child. We see now through a glass 
in a dark manner; but then, face to face. Now I know in part, 
but then I shall know even as I am known. And now there remains 
Faith, Hope, Charity; but the greatest of these is Charity." 

When the question of teaching the Classics was presented I 
made the suggestion that a better reference of it would have been 
to one of the two scholarly clergymen in charge of classes during the 

126 



Summer School session. The suggestion has immeasurably greater 
force in the question of the elements in the thirteenth chapter, of 
First Corinthians, even though it goes only, and as it should go 
to me, to the literary elements therein. 

St. Paul was a great, a magnificent and inspiring character. 
He was a man of education, of standing, of courage, of sincerity 
— sincere in his persecutions of the followers of our Saviour when the 
Voice called him and he was stricken blind. His speech before 
Festus is a magnificent piece of true and real and persuasive elo- 
quence. He feared not , Festus, nor any man. He appealed to 
Caesar and claimed the right because of his Roman citizenship. 
Eoman citizenship? Festus was amazed that one who stood before 
the judgment seat, as Paul did, in chains, and exclaims that with 
a great price had he purchased the privilege of Roman citizenship. 
*'But I was born free," was the answer of Paul, not in a spirit of 
vanity, but in the statement of a fact. Not in derision of the com- 
monalty, not possessing the rights of that citizenship, nor sneering 
at Festus because he had acquired the right by purchase — but be- 
cause he possessed it inherently he so stated and would stand upon 
the right and would appeal to Caesar. His spirit is shown in his 
wish that Festus, and all men, were like unto him, in all things, 
but not in the bonds which bound him and held him prisoner to a 
cruel death. 

He knew his appeal to Caesar would be in vain. But he knew 
that his life had been given to him for a great mission and that 
it was not to be surrendered at the bidding of the Governors of 
Judea, under Roman jurisdiction, but that the last resort would be 
sought. It is a tradition that when the martyrdom of St. Peter and 
his own were determined again he claimed the rights of Roman 
citizenship and was beheaded, with St. Peter, the poor and the 
humble and the unlearned first Pontiff, as St. Paul was learned and 
of the higher order, suffered death upon the cross, with his head to 
the ground. St. Paul claimed his rights of citizenship and they were 
accorded him — just as we, today, could claim rights which would be 
accorded if rightly demanded. But that is foreign to the question. 

In the thirteenth chapter. First Corinthians, there is every 
possible literary element that is elevating, comprehensive, forceful, 
descriptive and persuasive. In his first, his opening sentence, there 
is a complete statement of the proposition. ''If I speak with the 
voice of an angel," that is with the voice of one of the Spirits and 
Messengers of God, ''and have not charity, I am become as sounding 
brass and a tinkling cymbal." 

The great Apostle of the Gentiles undoubtedly set an example 
which was followed by Edmund Burke in his speech on Conciliation. 

127 



The suggestion came to me as I was reading again the thirteenth 
chapter, First Corinthians. With Burke, the proposition was peace, 
proceeding first to show what peace was not sought and what peace 
would not be accepted and then showing the peace that would be 
had and accepted, sought in peaceful ways and in the ordinary 
haunts of peace. The suggestion grows that Burke, the great 
orator, had studied and studied again and grasped the literary 
elements in the epistle of the great Apostle of the Gentiles to the 
Corinthians. 

Burke did not plagiarize. He followed the forceful, the magni- 
ficently and the inspired forceful words and manner of St. Paul. 
He told in what peace did not consist. He had read and studied 
the chapter of St. Paul under consideration wherein the Apostle 
tells what charity is not. Burke has been criticised for expressing 
his demands in the negative form. So did St. Paul. ''Charity 
envieth not; seeketh not her own; is not provoked to anger; 
rejoiceth not in iniquity," and he breaks away from the negative 
and affirmatively declares that charity rejoiceth with the truth. 
If he had not charity, even though speaking with the voice of an 
angel, he would be as sounding brass; as the orator who indulges 
in the flow of flowery language but when he leaves the stage or the 
political stump, his audience wonders what the flowers meant and 
find themselves as having been entertained by the tinkling of a 
cymbal. Even though he should have the gift of prophecy and 
foresee and proclaim that which was to come to pass; if he had all 
the knowledge of the world and could move mountains and had not 
charity — what would he be? Nothing! 

It is not until the close of his masterfully powerful persuasion of 
the necessity for charity in all things, that he mentions the remain- 
ing cardinal virtues — Faith and Hope. It would be by Faith only 
that he could move mountains. If he should know all mysteries, 
it could be only through the gifts of God. If he gave all his goods 
to the poor and his body to be burned, it would be in the Hope of 
reward in eternity — but if he had not charity in the giving, his 
hope would be all vain — and at the last he says: ''Now I know in 
part, but then I shall know even as I am known. And now there 
remains Faith, Hope, Charity; but the greatest of these is Charity." 

Is there a fault in the closing words of the great Apostle — a 
rhetorical fault? Has he not shown most conclusively that without 
charity all is in vain? Has he not exalted the sublimity of the 
qualities of charity in a persuasiveness from which escape of assent 
is impossible? Has he not in the briefest, the most terse yet the 
most comprehensive manner shown that charity abideth not in 
iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth and, therefore, is the greatest essen- 

128 



tial to the salvation of all men and, in an especial manner of the 
Corinthians to whom he had addressed his epistle? What, then, 
was the necessity for his concluding words: ''And now there remain 
Faith, Hope, Charity, but the greatest of these is charity." Was it 
because in the previous verse he had told them we see now through 
a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face and that he felt 
that within himself, or within the minds of the Corinthians, there 
might be possibility of mistake? 

He had extolled the exalted qualities of Faith and of Hope. 
He had told the Corinthians that one of the qualities of Charity 
was in belief in all things. That is Faith. He had told them that 
Charity hopeth all things. There is the cardinal virtue of Hope. 
There is no literary fault to be found in his last seven words: ''But 
the greatest of these is Charity." It was but the summing up of 
his exhortations to Charity. His entire chapter is brief and there 
can be not the slightest possible opposition to his seven words of 
summary. There is Faith and there is Hope; these you must hold 
but ever wear it in your heart that the greatest of the three is Charity! 

Can his description of the qualities of Charity be excelled. 
Could they be equalled? Where is the orator of today or of the past 
ages who has so perfectly described that which Charity is? Not 
one of the better acts of man would be available to eternal life without 
Charity was the moving element in the act. He might give all his 
goods to be distributed to the poor, but with out Charity it would 
profit him nothing. But, says the modern philanthropist who gives 
of his millions to libraries or to universities, or to educational ad- 
vance — being sufficiently charitable so to call it for the purposes of 
the question — "Am I not giving my millions in Charity? Have I 
not given of my millions to the poor that they may receive an edu- 
cation? Have I not given of my millions to the librariless, the book- 
less, citizen opportunities for filling his mind with knowledge?" 

The Charity of which the poor philanthropist speaks is not the 
Charity of which the great Apostle of the Gentiles wrote to the 
Corinthians. He, himself, shows the fact most conclusively and 
most expressively. If he gave all his goods to the poor it would 
avail him nothing unless he had Charity. The modern philanthro- 
pist does not see in the light St. Paul showed it. The poor, undoubt- 
edly, would have been benefitted by the gift — but the Charity that 
must accompany the act of giving his goods to the relief of the 
suffering, must be the Charity that thinketh no evil; the Charity 
that never falls; that curbs the turbulent soul when there arises in 
it harsh thoughts and the tongue begins to make ready to utter 
them. There can be no mistaking the meaning of St. Paul — and 
in the use of that expression, I am viewing the thirteenth chapter 
only from the question of the literary elements contained in it. 

129 



Is there a single element absent from it? Not the Charity that 
founds institutions of learning in which there must be no Faith 
taught and, therefore, the element of Hope— the cardinal virtue of 
Hope — will not be available. Having shown the beauties of Charity 
in its kindliness that ascribes to others possession of right and whole- 
some qualities; that looks upon faults with kindliness; that 
thinketh no evil, he reverts to the days when as a child, he thought 
as a child — but now he is a man and thinketh as a man. Now we 
see darkly — but then, face to face he sums up the entire proposition 
in the few words — 'The greatest of these is Charity." His very 
statement of the proposition carries its own invincible and impreg- 
nable argument with it. 

Therein his persuasion, always from the rhetorical point of view,, 
is perfect. His description of Charity is perfect. It can not be 
repeated too often nor studied too often and a large and abiding 
place for it must ever be in the heart and the soul. There is, prac- 
tically, no element of narration in the chapter. None was needed. 
It was the Apostle writing to the Christians at Corinth. Exposi- 
tion, description, persuasion, pathos, terseness, comprehensiveness. 
The Corinthians, had been told of Charity; in what it consists; 
in what it did not consist; the qualities it possessed; the qualities, 
it had not; the inutility of gifts, made possibly in sorrow over the 
knowledge or the sight of suffering — but all of no avail unless Charity 
were in the heart and the soul of the giver. Faith was a cardinal 
virtue and Hope likewise, but without Charity — as he so perfectly 
described it, nothing! The greatest of the three was Charity! In 
those few words, seven, there is the element of persuasion expressed 
in words never excelled. And wherein? In the fact that they had 
been told what Charity was and the persuasion to abide by it, to 
hold fast to it is in the words: 'The greatest of these.'' 

Is there Charity today? There is an abundance of it! The: 
world is bad, we may say, but the world ever has been and ever will 
be the abode of the captious, the unforgiving, the harsh and the 
cruel, the willing to believe evil of their neighbor and gloss over the 
good reports heard of him. It will ever have among men the grasp- 
ing, the avaricious and the conscienceless, as it ever has had. But 
it ever has had and ever will have among it the kindly, the charitable 
as St. Paul understood it and inculcated it. You have met as I have 
met, the kindly and the charitable in thought and in word. Of 
their charitable acts we may not know anything, but such men and 
more women exist than, possibly, the world gives credit. 

There ever will remain in my memory a man of ordinary educa- 
tion; a contractor who saw to it that the men digging in the moun- 
tains in the work of building a railroad did every bit of the work that 

130 



was assigned to them. The man was rough in speech and at times 
rough in manner. But it was known of him and spoken of him that 
never from his hps came an unkind word of any one of his fellowmen. 
On the contrary, when men would gather in the evening and criti- 
cism, was made of some one this man knew, he would tell a story of 
some good or kindly act that he had done. If he knew not the 
person subject to the criticism, he would remain silent but, at the 
right time and in the right manner he would suggest the possibility 
that there was good in the man — and then the better nature of the 
critics would arise and there would be agreement and there would be 
incidents told of good not to be expected from the beginnings of the 
harsh criticisms. That man was kindly; he was patient and he 
certainly thought no evil of his neighbor but saw good in him. 
There are others like unto him. And of the elements of literature 
in the chapter, there is one of the utmost descriptive power: ''Charity 
never falleth away." 

What a magnificent character was Paul! How dearly is it 
hugged to the bosom of some that between Paul and Peter there 
were differences! There were differences at once marked and most 
easily distinguishable between them for Peter was of the common- 
alty; Paul was not; Peter was ignorant; Paul was learned; 
Peter was humble; Paul stood upon his rights and magnificently 
did he let Festus and Agrippa know that not alone did he know his 
rights but that they had come to him by birth, and not by purchase. 
While Paul was speeding for further persecutions, there came the 
flash and the call, and Paul was blinded for a time and afterwards 
came into the position into which he had himself placed many. 

''And Paul was brought forth." Festus says that while the 
multitudes have been crying out that Paul ought not to live longer, 
so far as he is concerned, he can see nothing in Paul worthy of death 
— ^but as he has appealed to Augustus, he will be sent to Rome and 
abide by the judgment of the Emperor. 

There was the right of hearing in those days and Agrippa tells 
Paul he may speak in his own behalf. Paul spoke in words that 
went to the very innermost souls of Agrippa and of Festus, telling 
them of Moses and the prophets: that Christ should suffer and 
should rise from the dead; the first to rise from the dead, show light 
to the people and to the Gentiles. Verily Paul was raving; he was 
crazy; he was mad. All were silent as Paul spoke, but Festus can 
not longer contain himself. He knew Paul was persuading him and 
he knew the persuasion was convincing and he tells Paul he was 
crazy. "Paul thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make 
thee mad." And Paul said, gently, kindly, with dignity and in all 



131 



sincerity of love for the judge sitting in judgment upon him: 
am not mad, most noble Festus, but I speak the words of truth and 
soberness/' 

Then he challenges Agrippa. ''Believest thou the prophets, O 
King Agrippa! I know thou belie vest," and in a little while Paul 
would have persuaded Agrippa to become a Christian. That is the 
admission of Agrippa and it is the conviction that Paul has per- 
suaded — but there was place, and there was power and on stony 
hearts persuasion works but selfishness comes again and overthrows, 
persuasion. ''I would to God that in both a little and in much not 
only thou but also all that hear me this day should become such as I 
also and except these bonds." 

The conclusion to the sincere and the kindly, the thoroughly 
Christian wish of the learned and the most eloquent Apostle of the 
Gentiles is unanswerable and with the brevity of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, their avoidance of unnecessary detail in description, the fol- 
lowing verse tells us: ''And the King rose up, and the Governor 
and Bernice and they that sat with them, and when they were gone 
aside they spoke among themselves saying: This man hath done 
nothing worthy of bonds or of death." 

It was well that they arose! The answer of Paul to Agrippa 
was unanswerable. He stood by his situation, with his life in the 
balance; he stood upon his rights as a Roman citizen; he had 
argued convincingly; he had touched the very hearts and the souls, 
of Agrippa and Festus and Bernice and of all who sat with them — 
of that there can be little doubt for of all who went aside and listened 
to Agrippa's judgment on the worth of Paul and his innocence not. 
one is recorded as differing from the judgment of Agrippa — but 
Paul had appealed to Caesar and to Caesar he must go, but he might 
have been set at liberty, Agrippa says, if he had not appealed. The 
Charity of which Paul wrote to the Corinthians is in his appeal 
before Agrippa and Festus: "1 would to God that not only thou,, 
Agrippa, but all who hear me should become such as I am — except 
these bonds." Not in suffering, not in facing death, not in chains, 
but in Faith! What literary element is wanting in the hearing 
before Agrippa and Festus? Not one! 



132 



HENRY V-FALSTAFF-FLUELLEN. 




HERE is the acquisition of fame and territory in the 
drama of Henry V. There is ambition and there 
is war in it. But it is a drama without treachery; 
without hatred, without revenge for private 
wrongs; it is a drama of action, with indecision 
a thing unknown and without the spurring of a 



husband by his wife, to do that from which a 
better nature recoiled but to which his weaker elements brought 
him. It is a drama of dignity; of courage; of successes and de- 
feats; of pathos; a drama wherein it is shown most persuasively 
that it is within the power of man to shake off frivolity and a yearn- 
ing for the foolish things of this life, and rise to full appreciation of 
his duty, and follow the path of right action throughout. 

Henry was a great King. He knew himself. In his early days 
he had played the part of a wild and reckless youth; had brought 
pangs to his father and loss of public respect for himself. He gave 
slight promise in his youth of the great powers within him. His 
associates were of the class which, having no respect for itself, could 
not and did not have aught of respect for others. Henry was the 
Crown Prince, with his future subjects looking with distrust upon 
him and undoubtedly holding within their hearts the belief that with 
the close of the reign of his father, the fourth Henry, there would 
come revolution to the land or, if not revolution, disasters at home 
and loss of trade and commerce, influence in and among the affairs 
of the world and a lowering of the dignity of the Crown and of the 
nation. 

Shakespeare has so persuaded us in his Henry the Fourth. We 
see only Prince Hal; Falstaff; Poins; Bardolph; revelings and 
riotings. We are given to see the Crown Prince uniting with his 
associates in committing a highway robbery; with carousals at the 
tavern; with the future King the boon companion of Falstaff, a 
character magnificently drawn and a character to be avoided. 
Shakespeare has persuaded us to the belief that the future of Eng- 
land was to be in the hands of a reckless, wild, thoughtless youth, 
incapable of self-government and, therefore, incapable of governing 
a Kingdom, especially in view of the fact that while Europe was at 
peace at that time, all men knew that the fires of war needed but the 



133 



toucH of an ambitious, or a reckless ruler, to set the world aflame. 
Shakespeare in his magnificent powers of description does not, 
himself, as a rule describe Prince Hal. He allows, or compels, the 
Prince to describe himself and so complete is the description that we 
are persuaded to an unflinching degree of the low qualities and 
attributes of one who later showed himself to be the greatest of all 
the line of Lancastrian Princes. 

There is, however, another description, or suggestion, which 
must not be overlooked. It is exceedingly probable that Shakes- 
peare knew that there would abide in the minds of all the fact of 
disregard of all right rules of conduct in Prince Hal, not only as a 
man but as one to whom a Crown would come. Today when we 
read of the Prince, or think of him, we revert to thoughts of frivolity, 
of wassails, of low companions. The great poet knew it and so, 
when at the last the Prince consents to the commission of the pro- 
jected highway robbery, unites in it and sees the completion of it, 
Shakespeare brings him back to some appreciation of that which 
he had done. He raises the Prince in the esteem of the reader and 
of the student in the fact that the booty taken from the victims of 
the prank is restored to them, and they go on their way rejoicing in 
possession of that which they thought lost for all time. In that 
there is persuasion to the reader to give to the Prince the credit for 
an innate sense of integrity; a reversion of form from a prank of 
robbery to restoration. But, so deeply are the reader and the 
student impressed with the baser attributes displayed by the Prince, 
that the restoration is forgotten or overlooked, and the vision of the 
Prince remains in all its wildness. 

Shakespeare knew whereof he was writing and had a distinct 
purpose in view. It was plain to him that the description of the 
Prince would remain in the minds of the public. It was his intent 
and purpose to hold the Prince in that lower estimation. There 
was to come a time when the dignity, the high aimis and and ob- 
jects, the sincerity of purpose, the courage, the action and the ac- 
complishment of purposes would be so great, so exalting and so 
completely shown, that the world would willingly acknowledge 
them. When that tim.e is at hand, the world forgets the pranks of 
the Prince and reverts to them only as an absolutely separate and 
distinctly different time in the life of the Prince and links them not 
with the history of the King. All the works of the great poet are 
worthy of the m.cst careful study and thought, whether in the tragedy 
of blood or of treachery— but when we come to Henry V, the element 
of contrast is most perfectly displayed; the element of description 
and element of persuasion are presented to us most strikingly; the 
coherence of plot and of the working of the plot; the reason why 

134 



Shakespeare allowed high qualities to be not alone dormant, but to 
be lowered from high plane to low plane; from right associations to 
the lowest possible associations and from the depths to the heights — 
all these are described with most perfect powers. We are persuaded 
to turn from the companionship of the Prince with Falstaff and 
Bardolph and Poins — and there were vestiges of good qualities in 
Poins — to the companionship of Henry with great acts and far-reach- 
ing accomplishments ; from lower manhood to higher. Not that man- 
hood was low in the Prince, but only neglected, to be resumed and 
held during life. 

To understand Henry and the fuller meanings of the great drama 
of Henry V., reference must be had to the closing scenes of Henry 
IV. His son had ascended the throne. Falstaff has been told of the 
death of Henry IV., and at once begins parceling out honors and 
emoluments to Shallow, to Pistol, to Bardolph and others. Falstaff 
owes Shallow a thousand pounds, but Falstaff will make the King, 
his old time comrade in pranks and foolishness, do Shallow grace. 
Shallow has been told that what office he will have will be his, and 
Pistol will be double charged with dignities. The King enters. 
''God save thee, my sweet boy," is the salute of Falstaff. Rebuked 
by the Chief Justice, Falstaff continues in his salutations, and the 
King speaks. 

King.— 

"I know thee not, old man; fall to thy prayers; 
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, 
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane; 
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. 
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; 
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape 
For thee thrice wider than for other men. 
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest: 
Presume not that I am the thing I was; 
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, 
That I have turn'd away my former self; 
So will I those that kept me company. 
When thou dost hear I am as I have been, 
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast, 
The tutor and the feeder of my riots: 
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, 
As I have done the rest of my misleaders, 
Not to come near our person by ten mile. 
For competence of life I will allow you. 
That lack of means enforce you not to evil: 
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves. 
We will, according to your strengths and qualities. 
Give you advancement." 

185 



It was not a cruel dismissal of Falstaff . It was a dismissal on 
the part of Henry of his former life, his erring way, his former self. 
It was descriptive of the mind and heart and soul of Henry, as Henry 
ever had been, notwithstanding his covering of himself with the 
follies and the foibles of youth, and notwithstanding his close com- 
panionship with men of the calibre of Falstaff and his comrades. 
There could be no gradual change in the outward manner and 
bearing of Henry. If Shakespeare had allowed the slightest tem- 
porizing with Falstaff, it would have been an allowance of tem- 
porizing with his faults and his youthful indiscretions, and had that 
been allowed, there would have never been the Henry at Agincourt — 
the Henry of history no less than the Henry of the great Drama of 
Action. Like unto Hamlet with his mother, Henry was compelled 
to cruelty with Falstaff only that he might be kind unto him, and 
kind unto the new and the responsible duties that had come unto him. 

We may look upon the address of Henry to Falstaff as indicative 
of a most sudden change of heart and of ethics on his part. If we 
are given to that thought, let us hark back to the scene in Henry IV., 
where the Prince enters the chamber wherein his father is sleeping, 
the Crown upon the pillow. In his soliloquy, before he takes the 
Crown and goes out with it, there are evidences of the deeper and 
the better nature within him. Prince Henry takes the Crown from 
the room. His father awakes, and Warwick enters telling him: 

"My Lord! I found the Prince in the next room, 
Washing with gentle tears his kindly cheeks, 
With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow 
That Tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood. 
Would, by beholding him, have washed away his knife 
With gentle eye drops. He is coming hither." 

The King asks: ''But wherefore did he take away the Crown?'' 
Before Warwick could answer the Prince enters, saying that he never 
thought to hear his father speak again, with the King answering in 
that most expressive sentence: 'Thy wish was father to that 
thought, Harry." His previous life was before the mind of the King. 
He asks why it was that his son stole that which, after a few hours 
would be his by right; at the coming of his death, his son had sealed 
up his expectation; his life had made it manifest that he loved not 
his father, and the taking of the Crown from the pillow had but 
accentuated the belief. The appreciation of the dying King was 
that his son had a thousand daggers in his thoughts, and had whetted 
them on his stony heart to stab at half an hour of his life. He bids 
his son go and dig his grave; to bid the merry bells ring that he 
is crowned. In the concluding words of his arraignments of the 

136 



cruelty and neglect of his son, to whom the crown would descend, 
the dying King says : 

"O, my poor kingdom! Sick with civil blows; 

When that my care could not withhold thy riots, 

What wilt thou do when riot is thy care? 

0, thou wilt be a wilderness again, 

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants " 

Throughout the accusing words of his father, words well deserved 
by the son who had given his life to rioting and whose entire life gave 
warrant to the vision of the King that rioting would be the rule in 
his troubled kingdom and peopled again with wolves, the son stands 
quiet and in respectful attitude. The magnificent descriptive 
powers of the great poet have brought the climax about as it could 
not otherwise have been brought. The Prince entering the death 
chamber of his father, sees the crown and takes it away. His un- 
doubtedly sincere statement that he never thought again to hear his 
father speak, answered by the wish being father to the thought; 
his silence his dying father portrays, as none other could have por- 
trayed it, the neglects of his son, his harshness towards his father in 
his conduct, belitting to a Prince — not a detail is absent! When the 
feeble voice of his dying father ceases, the Prince speaks: 
"God witness with me, when I here came in, 

And found no course of breath within your majesty. 

How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign, 

O, let me in my present wildness die 

And never live to show the incredulous world 

The noble change that I have purposed 

Coming to look on you, thinking you dead, 

And dead almost, my liege, to think you were, 

I spake unto this crown as having sense. 

And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending 

Hath fed upon the body of my father; 

Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold: 

Other, less fine in carat, is more precious, 

Preserving life in medicine potable; 

But thou, most fine, most honor'd, most renown'd. 

Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege, 

Accusing it, I put it on my head, 

To try with it, as with an enemy 

That had before my face murder'd my father. 

The quarrel of a true inheritor. 

But if it did infect my blood with joy. 

Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride; 

If any rebel or vain spirit of mine 

Did with the least affection of a welcome 

Give entertainment to the might of it, 

Let God for ever keep it from my head 

And make me as the poorest vassal is 

That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!" 



King.— r 
"O my son, 
God put it in thy mind to take it hence, 
That thou mightst win the more thy father's love, 
Pleading so wisely in excuse of it! 
Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed." 

It is again Harry! It is again his son! Come hither, Harry,, 
and sit thou by my bed and hear the very latest counsel a dying: 
father can give! The wild past of Harry is forgotten. The great 
Master of Language, for his own far-reaching purposes, had clothed 
young Harry in the garb of folly and of rioting; possibly because 
Harry knew the means whereby his father had attained the crown — 
the ''by-paths," as the dying King called them in his parting with 
his son and it may be he knew ''how troublesome it sat upon my 
head," as his father described it. It is possible he knew all these 
things in his youthful days and looked upon the things of earth, the 
gaudy baubles which crowns were, whether acquired by lawful means 
or unlawful by-paths, as his father had acquired the royalty of Eng> 
land, and so turned his youthful ways and acts to frivolity as he 
looked upon royalty as a vain thing and only a passing show. His 
persuasive answer to his father, the answer through which he 
wins again the love and the confidence of his father, shows the 
real character of the Prince. He knew of the coming of high honors 
unto himself, but with them the coming of great duties and if the 
crown, which he had placed upon his head while his father slept,^ 
brought unto him thoughts of vanity, or swelled his thoughts to 
pride, God keep it from him! The errant son has won back the love 
and the respect, the esteem and the confidence of his father. The 
death bed reconciliation marks the coming of the new era, not alone 
to Prince Henry but to England, in the wearing of a crown not 
attained by indirect or crooked ways, but lawfully by descent and 
with the acclaim of the nobility and the commonalty of England. 

It is instructive to turn to any one of the pages of the great 
Master when study follows and his deep meanings caught. It is 
pleasant to turn for a time from tragedies of treachery and tragedies 
of mad ambition to the great drama of action; from indecision, as 
Hamlet portrayed it to Henry who saw and followed his vision with 
action; from the acquisition of a throne through blood, as MacBeth 
acquired the throne to a throne occupied by one through lawful 
means, and never staining his royalty by blood or by dishonor nor 
by scandalous conduct. It is instructive, not alone as matter of 
human life, to note the throwing away of a former wild and reckless 
life, from tavern gatherings and follies to highway robbery — with 
restitution of the booty — to high ideals and to firm and fixed determi- 

138 



nation to continue on the paths of honor. That determination was 
expressed even to the poor, trembhng, heart-broken and disap- 
pointed Falstaff that never was he to approach the person of the 
King until he heard that he again was as once he had been. With 
his dismissal of Falstaff there is another evidence of his true-hearted- 
ness, for he will allow Falstaff a competence through which he may 
maintain himself in comfort, and avoid the necessity of again re- 
turning to his former evil and dissolute ways. Whether we under- 
stand fully the reasons why Shakespeare gave to Prince Hal the 
levities which he hugged to his breast, until the scene at the bedside 
of his dying father, may be a question. But there is no doubt about 
the perfection of understanding Falstaff had of the farthest intent 
and meaning of the King. He listens in silence and, turning to 
Master Shallow to whom he had promised everjrthing he might 
desire in the way of honors and riches, he sums up his perfect under- 
standing between him and his one-time comrade — ^his ''pet," as he 
called him — in this one line: ''Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand 
pounds." And he would continue to owe it to him! Falstaff knew 
it and appreciated it. Shallow did not, but as the appreciation of 
Falstaff was followed by the effect of non-payment, the ignorance 
of Shallow is not a material element. 

The drama of Henry V. is not only the drama of action but the 
drama of description and of persuasion. If the writers and the 
orators of today, the writers and the orators not given to the fads 
and fancies, the Pritchettisms and the Carnegieisms and Slosson- 
ism^s, would but study and acquire the art of effective language, the 
isms would fade more quickly and there would be fewer to follow 
them. 

''Every age and every clime brings forth a new one," and the 
expression barely does the subject justice. It is not every age that 
brings forth a new cult or ism or fad — but every day, and the fight is 
continuous. The art of effective speaking, or effective writing, is 
not found in the text books of rhetoric, nor in text books of English 
literature used in the schools. They are, no doubt, the foundation 
but the effective superstructure is to be found in the study of the 
works of the Masters, themselves, and while Shakespeare holds and 
ever will hold the first and deserved and unapproachable rank, there 
are others to be studied, if not in the vernacular then in translations 
by translators who will translate and not supply their own mean- 
ings to the expression of the author whose works are in their hands. 

Schiller, like unto that of Goethe, paid ever the highest tribute 
to Shakespeare. Both recognized that the great Master was not 
insular but cosmopolitan. They recognized, as all students of 
literature have and ever will recognize, the absolute impartiality of 

139 



Shakespeare; his perfection of mastery of each and every one of 
the elements of effective writing, portraying not alone the follies 
and the ambitions of men but their better qualities and, at all times 
and under all circumstances, recognizing the element of Faith and 
holding all men and all things subject to the laws of a Divine Creator 
and Ruler of all. 

There is something of prolixity in the soliloquies in Henry V., at 
least it is charged by some, and that there are unnecessary characters 
in Henry V. It may be so, but being among the minor commentators 
it is due to critics to say that I have not been able to find the charac- 
ter without an aim and object in view. With reference to the 
number of characters in the drama, it must be remembered that the 
scene is not alone confined to one country, as MacBeth and Hamlet 
and the Merchant of Venice were confined not alone to one country, 
but to localities in each country, as the rule. Henry V. acts in Eng- 
land and in France. Two nations are involved, and so is the crown 
of France. In addition to the country across the channel, there are 
Scotland and Ireland and Wales, especially the two former which, 
in his father's day, had the chief elements in the ''civil troubles" to 
which reference is made in the death bed scene. 

There may be something of prolixity in the first and in the second 
scenes of the first act — the scenes wherein is considered between the 
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely the bill urged in the 
eleventh year of the reign of Henry the Fourth; and in the scene 
wherein the King, with the crown of France in his mind's eye, asks 
the meaning of the Salique law, and whether, in the opinion of the 
ecclesiastics versed in the law of France, it would operate against his 
lawful wearing of the crown of France. The law was that ''No 
woman shall succeed in Salique land" and Henry's claim, if claim he 
had, came through the maternal line. But it is to be remembered, 
in extenuation of the charge of prolixity, that lawyers, in those days, 
ecclesiastical as well as secular, were given to verbosity, as some are 
given today; that authorities and genealogies had to be cited and 
while the learned disquisitions and expositions of the Salique law 
might, and would, have tired the audience, yet they were necessary. 
Kings cannot move on impulse but on high grounds of right claim — 
at least that is the theory, as it was in the days of the Henrys. 
Apart from his disquisition on the Salique law, there is a description 
given of Henry by the Archbishop worthy of note for its effective- 
ness in few words. It shows that verbosity was no part of the 
character of the Archbishop, save where laws of the Middle Ages 
were involved and a King had to be convinced of the justice of a 
claim: 



140 



Canterbury. — 

"The courses of his youth promised it not. 
The breath no sooner left his father's body, 
But that his wildness, mortified in him, 
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment 
Consideration, Hke an angel, came 
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him. 
Leaving his body as a paradise. 
To envelop and contain celestial spirits. 
Never was such a sudden scholar made; 
Never came reformation in a flood, 
With such a heady currance, scouring faults; 
Nor never hydra-headed wilfulness 
So soon did lose his seat and all at once 
As in this king." 

That hydra-headed wilfulness lost its seat, all at once, because 
there was in him from the beginning the better elements of man- 
hood, covered over with wildness and vain, though not wholly evil, 
courses. The contrast between the unstable youthful Prince and 
the dignified, active, courageous and persistent King is another 
evidence of the possession the Great Master held over language and 
brought it to the uses he intended — and never used for base purposes 
by him. Whenever the Great Master draws a character, he writes 
a great lesson. When he puts words upon the tongue of a character, 
there is another lesson. He has an object in all things and it is 
not an impossibility to discover the object. There may be differ- 
ence of opinion as to the object sought, but there is no difference of 
opinion on the fact that an object was in view. If the student will 
but give due thought to the words, the characters, the scene of ac- 
tion, the age and the time it cannot be otherwise than in the teaching 
of English literature, and in the teaching of the effective use of lan- 
guage, there will be found mines of wealth of thought, covered in 
the most perfect powers of description and of persuasion in Henry 
V. and in every act of it. 

Shakespeare reveled in the tragic side of life. It gave to him 
the greatest opportunity of all for presenting the impregnable truth 
of the reaping of the harvest according to the sowing of the seed. 
He reveled in the dramatic. It gave him the opportunity of por- 
traying man in civil life; in home life and in the ordinary courses 
of events; it gave him opportunities for the greatest display of his 
descriptive and persuasive powers; it gave him the opportunity 
of portraying great events without the stigma of blood or of treach- 
ery everywhere; it gave him opportunities of display of powers of 
statemanship ; of advance on right lines or, if the lines were wrong, 
they were not followed by unlawful means, as nations regarded 
means as lawful or unlawful; it gave him better opportunities for 

141 



the drawing of characters and in not one of his dramas are there 
characters drawn Hke unto Falstaff, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, Mac- 
Morris, Gower, Jamy and last — but the most impressive— Fluellen, 
officers in the army of Henry V. in France, and Bates, Court and 
Williams soldiers in the ranks. 

Not one of them would have fitted in a tragedy, and while there 
is humor in each of them and a laugh over Jamy, MacMorris and 
Fluellen in each line, they are better fitted for the great drama of 
Henry V. than they would have been in a comedy. In a comedy 
they, and each of them, would have been as the others in the comedy 
were. In Henry V. they are for the purposes of contrast, and for 
the other purpose of illustrating the democratic qualities of heart 
and mind of Henry; his innate appreciation of merit and his recog- 
nition of the better qualities in those below the ranks of nobility — a 
recognition not always but usually withheld in his day and time. 
In the introduction of the characters noted, there is another evi- 
dence that, to Shakespeare, the divinity that doth hedge a King 
was neither so enduring nor so beneficial as the divinity that 
hedged around recognition of the right of all men to equal justice 
and to equal protection of the laws of the land, no matter what the 
land may have been. We see that in the comradeship between 
Henry, the King, and Bates and Williams and others of the men in 
the ranks; in his toleration of the fluency of Fluellen ever at full 
tide and in his sincere tribute that there was much valor in the 
Welchman. 

A question has been asked as to my opinion of Fluellen. My 
opinion of Fluellen is that he held an excellent opinion of himself. 
While his sincerity is not to be questioned, his ever readiness to 
give advice unto others and to urge his own views and opinions on 
others, without regard to rank or station or knowledge, gives strong- 
est evidence that Fluellen was one of the men who believe that 
wisdom will die with them. There are Fluellens today, without 
the knowledge or the valor of Fluellen on the field in France; Flu- 
ellens, who, like unto Carlyle, look on things and judge them favor- 
ably or score them unmercifully, without the sincerity of Carlyle 
who, in all he did, looked to the betterment of things and feared not 
the heaviest indignation or the most outspoken wrath possible. 
The Fluellens of today, however, ever ready to pass judgment on 
the acts of their neighbors in the foolish opinion that their neighbor 
is mxore ignorant than they are, are not worthy to be classed with 
Fluellen of the reign of Henry V. 

Fluellen was a man in all things save in his volubility; he was 
brave, he was honest and he was sincere. His knowledge of the classics 
was wonderful ; not a military move was made but his mind reverted 

142 



to something akin that had been done by Hannibal, or by Caesar^ 
or by Xenophon or Alexander or some one or other of the great 
heroes, or statesmen or scientists of an age long gone and the lessons- 
of which had been forgotten by the warriors, the feudal nobility,, 
the military commanders and the kings of his day — and he mourned 
the fact. 

To him Alexander, the Great, was the greatest ever, but not one 
one of his constantly invoked heroes or commanders could, for one 
little moment, interfere with his unyielding loyalty to his King — 
Harry, of Monmouth, a countryman of Fluellen, by accident of 
birth and not of blood. But that made no difference to the single- 
hearted and the fluent Welchman. 

He was witty and he was sedate; he was bitter and he was. 
kindly; he was given to according to all men the attributes he held 
in high esteem; he was serious and sincere, and not given to the 
belief that those with whom he associated or with whom he was 
thrown in contact were otherwise than he, himself, was. The 
King gives him a glove, snatched, he says, from the helm of Alencon, 
when he and the King were together in the trenches, telling him 
that if any man challenge it, he is a friend to Alencon and an enemy 
to the King. ''If thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an' 
thou dost me love," says the King and Fluellen, highly honored,, 
places the glove upon his cap and goes forth, not seeking Alencon 
but not avoiding any one who may choose to challenge him. He 
meets with Williams, the soldier, with Henry, in the meantime 
bidding Warwick and Gloucestor follow Fluellen, giving his reasons: 

"My Lord of York and my brother Gloucestor, 
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels; 
The glove which I have given him for a favor, 
May haply purchase him a box o' the ear, 
It is the soldier's; I, by bargain, should 
Wear it myself; follow, good cousin Warwick 
If the soldier strike him, as I judge. 
By his blunt bearing he would keep his word, 
Some sudden mischief may arise from it. 
For I do know Fluellen valiant 
And touched with choler, hot as gunpowder, 
And quickly will return an injury. 
Follow and see there is no harm between them." 

Williams asks Fluellen if he knows the glove and, receiving a 
ready answer strikes Fluellen. Gower seeks to interfere but Flu- 
ellen will have none of it. He has been ordered to arrest and take 
before the King whomsoever may answer the challenge of the glove, 
for he will be no friend to Harry, of Monmouth, his King and fellow- 
countryman and while he is preparing to do that which was com- 

143 



manded him to do, the King enters. Fluellen volubly tells the King 
that which had occurred. The King asks Williams for his remaining 
glove and says that it was he, that Williams had vowed to strike. 
Pluellen interferes and tells the King that the neck of Williams 
should answer for his offense, not in the striking of himself, but in 
the treason of his proposed assault upon the King. Therein Flu- 
ellen, like unto Fluellens of today, brought forward his own view 
and understanding of the incident, not knowing, and not appre- 
ciating the possibility that Henry may have had a definite object 
in view, but no attention is paid to him. In the colloquy following 
between the soldier and the King there is one of the most appealing 
of lessons of the democracy of the King, and of the sturdy independ- 
ence of the Saxon soldier, tempered by the kindly consideration of 
Henry in his reception of the manly answer of Williams: 
Fluellen. — 

An please your majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial 
law in the world. 

King Henry. — 

How canst thou make me satisfaction? 
WiUiams. — 

All offences, my lord, come from the heart; never came any from mine that 
might offend your majesty. 
King Henry. — 
It was ourself thou didst abuse. 
Williams. — 

Your majesty came not like yourself; you appeared to me but as a common 
man; witness the night, your garments, your lowliness; and what your highness 
suffered under that shape, I beseech you take it for your own fault and not mine; 
for had you been as I took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I beseech your 
highness, pardon me. 

King Henry. — 

"Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns, 
And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow. 
And wear it for an honor in thy cap 
Till I do challenge it. Give him the crowns: 
And, captain, you must needs be friends with him." 

Fluellen. — 

By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough in his belly. Hold, 
there is twelve pence for you; and I pray you to serve God, and keep you out of 
brawls, and quarrels, and quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the 
better for you. 

Williams. — 

I will none of your money, 

Fluellen. — 

It is with a good will; I can tell you, it will serve you to mend your shoes; 
come, wherefore should you be so bashful? Your shoes is not so good; 'tis a good 
shilling, I warrant you, or I will change it. 

144 



The answer of Williams, the soldier and of the commonalty of 
England, is perfect. If he had abused the King, it was the fault 
of the King in not coming in his majesty and state, but as one of 
the commonalty. If the King suffered thereby, it was right that he 
should take the fault unto himself — and he asks pardon if he have 
offended. Then comes Fluellenism. The King bids Exeter fill the 
glove with crowns and give it to Williams. He bids Williams weair 
the glove on his cap as an honor until the King would challenge it, 
therein making the honor perpetual. Fluellen, taking example of 
the generosity of the King in filling the glove with crowns, comes 
forward and proffers twelve pence to Williams accompanying it, 
like unto Fluellens of today, with advice to keep out of brawls and. 
quarrels and dissensions, but ever ready to get into one himself if 
occasion should offer. The grotesqueness of the offer of the twelve 
pence to Williams is in the fact that when the offer is indignantly 
rejected, as it should have been in following out the principle of 
coherence in nationalisms, Fluellen mistakes the reason, plain to 
all others as a refusal of indignation. He assures Williams that the 
shilling is genuine and that if doubt there be on the subject, he will 
have it changed. Fluellen of Shakespeare, cannot be said to be 
interesting. He is fascinating. 

That he is a know-all, or deems himself to be one, is a self-evident 
proposition. That he had knowledge, education and courage with 
it all; that he was sincere in his loyalty to Henry; that he felt it 
to be his duty to advise and to admonish are facts self-evident 
throughout. That he was possessed of humor without knowing it^ 
is seen in his compelling Pistol to eat the leek; Pistol the swagger- 
ing, rampant braggart, has ridiculed the leek — the floral love of 
the Welch. Fluellen determines on revenge. He will meet Pistol 
and compel him to eat a leek — abhorrent to Pistol. They meet. 
The leek is offered and accepted with abhorrence. But he eats it 
to the accompaniment of strikes from Fluellen's fist. Pistol begins 
to swear; Fluellen tells him there aren't enough leeks to swear by 
and bids him when he seeks leeks thereafter, mock at them — that 
is all! Fluellen will do the rest and he gives Pistol a groat, bidding 
him good bye with this : 
Pistol.— 

"I take thy groat in earnest of revenge!" 
Fluellen. — 

"If I owe you anything, I will pay you in cudgels; you shall he a wood- 
monger and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God be with you and keep you 
and heal your pate." 

We smile over the humor of Fluellen in praying that Pistol's 
pate might be healed — humor of which he was not conscious — but 

145 



in his anger at Pistol there was something of depth. The leek is the 
emblem of the Welsh. It is worn by them with reverence on St. 
David's day, the day of the patron Saint of Wales, and Fluellen, 
voluble though he was, yet held reverence for traditions of his 
country and would have no one dare insult them or seek to bring 
them into scorn or contempt. Fluellen disappears from the drama 
with that, and it is an appropriate climax to his career throughout. 
In conversation with MacMorris, the exuberant Irishman, or with 
Jamy, the canny Scott, it is with Fluellen we are in sympathy 
notwithstanding he knows it all, as he tells Captain MacMorris: 
''Captain MacMorris, when there is much more better opportunity 
to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the 
disciplines of war; there is an end.'' 

An end to the wars and the disciplines of wars and of discussions 
of the fact that Fluellen knew it all! His faults were on the surface; 
he wore them on his sleeve and all men saw them. But all men, 
who knew him, saw as Henry saw that through it all Fluellen was 
not alone courageous but true and sincere. Pedagogical he was, 
but earnest. If he took it unto himself that he knew all things 
necessary to be known, he smothered his knowledge when the time 
for action came, on orders from his superior officers. He was de- 
voted to his native land and to its traditions which none might 
insult with impunity. He is one of the most fascinating characters 
of the great drama of Henry V. 



146 



MERCHANT OF VENICE. 




T IS exceedingly pleasant to note that not all 
writers of today are given over to the theories 
of the Slossonites and the Pritchetts in matters, 
affecting Faith and Education. The Reverend 
Dr. Henry L. Hudson, of the faith of Presby- 
terianism, is one who has studied Shakespeare 



and his works most thoroughly and has given 
to the world the results of his work. Reading him, we will not 
agree with him, on very many points of criticism. There will be 
very few to believe with him that Shylock was a bad and a cruel 
father — but with the following there will be practically unanimous 
agreement: 

*'It is but too certain that when Art takes to gratifying such an 
unreligious taste, and so works its forces for the pleasing of men with- 
out touching them with awe, it becomes no better than a discipline 
of moral enervation. Perhaps this same law would silence much of 
the voluble rhetoric with which a certain school of writers are wont 
to discourse of the great Miracle of Beauty which has been given 
to men in the life and character of the Blessed Saviour. For I must 
needs think that if they duly felt the awfulness of that Beauty, 
their fluency would be somewhat repressed and that their eloquence 
would be better if they feared more and flourished less. But the 
point which these remarks are chiefly meant to enforce is that there 
is no true Beauty of Art but what takes its life from religious awe; 
and that even in our highest intellectual culture, the intellect will be 
demoralized, unless it is toned to order by a supreme reference to 
the Divine Will. There is no true school of mental health and 
vigor and beauty but what works under the presidency of the same 
chastening and subduing power. Our faculties of thought and 
knowledge must be firmly held together with a strong girdle of 
modesty, else they can not thrive; and to have the intellect ''un- 
devoutly free," loosed from the bonds of reverence is a sure pledge 
and forecast of intellectual deformity and shallowness." 

It is, indeed, pleasant, refreshing, and invigorating to read the 
strong words of Dr. Hudson — bearing within them sound evidence 
of his genuine respect and devotion to the Faith which he holds; 
throwing away the fads of materialistic educational methods and 

147 



manners of today and bowing, as all holders of the True Faith bow, 
to the beneficient Creator who has given us memory, will and un- 
derstanding and will hold us, and each of us accountable for the use 
we make of them. 

One objection to be held against Dr. Hudson's sketch of the 
beginnings and the completions of the Merchant of Venice — at first 
called the Jew of Venice — is in his teaching that Shylock, the Jew, 
was harsh and hard and cruel, in fact in his family life. Dr. Hudson 
taking up the defense of Jessica in her desertion of her father, in 
her elopement and marriage with Lorenzo, holds her conduct as 
further justified by ''the odd testimony which Launcelot furnishes 
of her father's badness. We see that the Jew is much the same at 
home as on the Rialto; that, let him be where he will, it is his 
nature to snarl and bite." 

Shakespeare never intended that Shylock should be so con- 
sidered. Shylock was a Jew; a money lender and harsh and cruel, 
no doubt, with unfortunate debtors. He held a holy hatred to- 
wards Antonio, not because Antonio was himself cruel or harsh or 
unforgiving. On the contrary the hatred came because of the fact 
that Antonio, rich and prosperous, was kindly, beneficient and for- 
giving. A man of kindly heart, ever looking to the comfort of his 
friends, his neighbors and those who were in need and ready at any 
time to lend money without security and without exaction of the 
interest the Jew loved, and which if taken from him would have 
wrought his death. But the Jew, in the majority of his attributes 
is unchangeable. A harsh or a bad Jew father, is a thing unknown 
in the history of the race. The Jew at home is ever kindly to his 
children, and it is a noted fact that the child of the Jew is ever re- 
spectful to his father and mother — the Commandments given on 
the Mount have been largely overlooked by the Jew, save in one 
instance. The Jew honors his father and his mother, and it is certain 
that his days are not only long in the land but that he profits in the 
land, whether in this country or in any country in which he may 
establish himself. They are, of a certainty, the chosen people of this 
earth in their accumulations from small beginnings to large financial 
accomplishments — but with it all the Fourth Commandment pre- 
vails. The Jew honors his father and his mother, and his children 
honor him, and so it goes down through all the generations. It is 
impossible, therefore, to believe that Jessica held him in irreverence 
and treated him with scorn or with contempt. We must bear it in 
mind that the blood of the Hebrew race and the religion of the Jew 
were inborn and dominant in Shylock. 

Jessica loved a Gentile— Lorenzo — a thing in itself sufficient 
to wring the heart of Shylock and there is no doubt of the expression 

148 



of his feelings in that matter. But the testimony of his harshness 
rests largely on the testimony of Launcelot Gobbo, the clown, and 
the matter may be dismissed for the present, though worthy of your 
study. The snarling and the biting of Shylock came from the con- 
tempt with which he was treated, or fancied himself treated by 
Antonio when the two would meet on the Rialto — with more Jews 
on the Rialto of the world today than there were Gentiles on the 
Eialto of Venice in the days of Shylock. 

There are two characters in the Merchant of Venice. The 
general view is that there are three great characters in the tragedy 
—Shylock, Portia and Antonio. But when the play is carefully 
studied, the recollections are confined to the greatness of two — 
Portia and Shylock, with Portia the greater, for the reason that she 
accomplished far more than the pleadings of Bassanio, his offers 
of thrice the bond, and his pathetic fear that Antonio would be 
murdered in open court by Shylock, could accomplish. She accom- 
plished far more than the Duke could have hoped to accomplish, 
notwithstanding the complete power of the State was in his hands 
and that, if he had compelled Shylock to accept the payment of the 
bond there would have been none to overturn his decision. But 
Shakespeare had a distinct object in view, as he did in all his works 
and all were great, and within each there is contained a great lesson 
to mankind. 

The Jew and the Gentile are portrayed in the Merchant of 
Venice. The best qualities of the Gentile are kept ever in the fore- 
ground. The worst qualities of the Jew are, likewise, given the 
greatest prominence. Shylock is made to play the worst part of all. 
On him is heaped the ridicule, the contempt, and the scorn which the 
Christians of those days — the Gentiles so far as the play is concerned 
— ^heaped upon the Jew whether deserved or undeserved. Antonio 
is made the representative of the Gentiles. He is kindly as Shylock 
was cruel; as beneficient as Shylock was miserly; as generous as 
Shylock was selfish; as forgiving as Shylock was unforgiving; as 
frank and open as Shylock was secretive and sordid; and through 
it all, with undoubted intent on the part of Shakespeare there is 
not in all the throngs, whether on the Rialto or in the homes of Venice, 
one to respond from the heart to the pitiful wail of the Jew father: 
''My daughter, my daughter!" 



Before coming to the crux of the tragedy, there are many 
features in the Merchant of Venice. The first name of the tragedy, 
'The Jew of Venice,'' would have been more expressive and more 
attractive. In the days of Shakespeare, the very name of ''Jew 

149 



of Venice'' would have caught the attention of the crowds — for the 
contempt which Venetians heaped upon the Jew was as the con- 
tempt with which all Europe viewed him. That, however, is of 
small moment. Shakespeare had his reasons for the change, and 
the tragedy will live while English literature lives and while Shakes- 
peare is appreciated in all countries, as he is unquestionably. The 
two great characters in the tragedy are not brought forward as 
speedily as some commentators think they should have been. But 
the parts they play, and the magnificent manner in which their 
parts are played are amply sufficient to stamp them as the great, 
the dominant characters. There is in the tragedy somewhat too 
much of comedy through Launcelot Gobbo. Yet when we think 
of the necessity to which Shakespeare was put to make a showing of 
existence of all bad qualities in Shylock, the foolish, and sometimes 
impudent chatter of Gobbe and his apparently too great promi- 
nence are explained away. Gobbo, or some other chattering ser- 
vant, was needed to make a paternal showing of badness in Shylock 
and to excuse, or palliate, Jessica's desertion of him at a critical 
time in his life, in her marriage with the Gentile. 

So we find the opening acts and their scenes, dealing with 
Antonio, his sadness, his tremendous ventures on the sea of which 
he could learn nothing; his melancholy and his disturbed spirit. 
He is not, as he tells Salarnio, troubled over his ventures on sea, 

saymg. "My ventures are not in one vessel trusted, 

Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate 
Upon the fortune of this present year, 
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad." 

And he adds that he is not in love — but continues his melan- 
choly mood until the coming of Bassanio, with Lorenzo and Gra- 
tiano. Bassanio lays the real foundation of the plot in his state- 
ment of his financial condition and he proposes to unburden himself 
to Antonio, all his plots and purposes how to get rid of his debts. 
Antonio at once responds. Evidently his heart is open to all men — 
but he makes something of a contradiction of his statement to 
Salarnio concerning his financial condition that his ventures on sea 
were not bothering him, for he tells Bassanio that 

"Thou knowest that all my fortunes are at sea; 
Neither have I money or commodity 
To raise a present sum; therefore, go forth; 
Try what my credit can in Venice do; 
That shall be racked, even to the uttermost, 
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. 
Go presently inquire, and so will I, 
Where money is, and I no question make, 
To have it of my trust or for my sake." 
150 



and they separate. Salarnio was merely one of that class of men 
which is always asking questions and having no special reason for 
the asking. One of the men who gossips on affairs of today with 
their friends, asking personal questions and forgetting them or 
caring nothing for them. Antonio knew the fact and tells Salarnio 
that not all his fortunes are in the seas. But when Bassanio comes 
and touches the kind heart of Antonio, the sincerity of the man is 
aroused and he tells Bassanio to make inquiry as to his credit and 
that he will do the same. Antonio is a magnificent, kindly character; 
perfectly well drawn by Shakespeare; submissive to the law of his 
country when Portia held that Shylock was entitled to the pound of 
flesh. He does not join in the cruel, but deserved rebukings and 
scoffings showered on the head of Shylock when Portia admonishes 
him that while he might have his pound of flesh, not one drop of 
Christian blood dare be taken with the flesh nor even one feather's 
weight beyond or below the pound that was written in the bond — 
and when Gratiano, mocking Shylock, uses his description of Portia, 
and cries out: 

"A Daniel, still say I, a second Daniel, 
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word," 

Antonio continues his kindly characteristic, showing how absolutely 
wrong were the reproaches Shylock cast upon him when the bond 
was signed. He asks that half the fine be remitted on condition that 
he become a Christian with the other half of the fine to be held in 
trust for Lorenzo and Jessica. Shylock was content, miserly con- 
tent, to comply with the suggestion and the showing of the manliness 
and the kindliness of Antonio could not have been more effectively 
portrayed. 

The most effective exhibition of the descriptive powers of 
Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice may be described as being 
without words. After Portia instructs the clerk to draw the ''deed 
of gift,'' Shylock says: 

"I pray you, give me leave to go from hence, 
I am not well; send the deed after me 
And I will sign it." 

The Duke.— ''Get thee gone; but do it." 
And then comes Gratiano, the Christian Gratiano, saying to 
the Jew: 

"In christening thou shalt have two god-fathers; 
Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more, 
To bring thee to the gallows — not the font." 

Shylock disappears, with the bitterly uncharitable good- 



151 



bye of Gratiano — but a farewell at once in keeping with the spirit 
of the times and in a marked degree, the spirit of the Italian bankers 
and money lenders toward the Jew. Why should not Shyloek 
have disappeared as Shakespeare makes him disappear? It was 
the summit of rhetorical art and of the descriptive element of the 
art in Shakespeare. Shyloek had been disappointed in his proposed 
revenge on Antonio, and it is somewhat apparent that his hatred 
for Antonio was more personal than based on religious or racial 
animosity. His daughter had deserted him; his fortune was gone; 
he was a penniless man of an ostracized race. No more would he 
be recognized on the Rialto. No more would there come to him 
Gentiles or others asking for the means to enable them to carry 
on their ventures; no more would he have followers who would 
keep him in touch with the mercantile successes and merchandise 
in which Antonio was interested. No more would he see his un- 
fortunate debtors craving him for mercy or for extension of time in 
which to pay to him their borrowings, with usurious interest. He 
was homeless and friendless; and what could have been more 
effective in displaying one of the intents and purposes of Shakes- 
peare — the triumph of the Gentile over the Jew, than in the sudden 
disappearance of Shyloek; not the slightest further reference to 
him, than in his complete disappearance before the ending of the 
ti agedy. In his request for the deed, there is a pathos in the fact 
— adding to the effectiveness of the intent of Shakespeare — that 
Shyloek does not ask leave to go to his home. ''Let me go hence," 
is his request. It mattered not whither he went if only he might 
go from the presence of Bassanio whom he had made happy by his 
loan to Antonio, enabling Bassanio to marry Portia; from the 
presence of Antonio on whom he had hoped to reek his personal 
vengeance and from the presence of Portia whom he had called a 
most wise young man and a Daniel come to judgment. And he 
disappears. Verily he had sown the wind of avarice, of extortion 
and of cruelty and oppression of the poor and had reaped the whirl- 
wind. He knew it — and all he asked was to ''go hence". And 
others like unto to him will go hence, as he went. We may pity 
Shyloek; we may condemn him; we may feel sympathy for him 
in his daughter's desertion of him in his old age; we may wonder 
over the laws of Venice, a Christian nation or Dukedom, in its laws 
of barbaric character under which the Duke was forced to hold 
Antonio liable to the letter of the bond; we may wonder over the 
greatness of the hatred of Shyloek for Antonio surpassing the in- 
herent love of money in the Jew, and, especially, in Shyloek — yet 
we must admit, even against our feelings that Shakespeare has so 
staged the entire scene of the going of Shyloek that our condemna- 

152 



tion is due him only in less degree than our admiration is for Portia 
— the wise young man, the Daniel come to judgment! 



In the portions of the Merchant of Venice, so far considered, 
there are qualities of exposition, narration and description. In the 
portions to be considered — the scene in the Court of Venetian 
Justice — to call it Justice — the other and the greater element ap- 
pears. That is to say the element of persuasion, unsuccessful, 
though never more perfectly used. 



Bassanio meets with Shylock and makes known to him his 
desire for the possession of three thousand ducats. 
Shylock. — Three thousand ducats; well. 
Bassanio. — ^Ay sir; for three months. 
Shylock. — For three months; well. 

Bassanio. — For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound. 

Shylock. — ^Antonio shall be bound, well. 

Bassanio. — May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall 
I know your answer? 

Shylock. — Three thousand ducats for three months and Antonio 
bound. 

Bassanio — Your answer to that. 
Shylock. — Antonio is a good man. 

Bassanio. — Have you heard any intimation to the contrary? 

And Shylock, with the craving for vengeance and relying on his 
secret information that Antonio's ventures on the seas were one 
great wreck and that Antonio was, in fact, bankrupt, hastens to 
answer that he does not, by any means, believe that Antonio is 
anything but a good man. But there are his ventures to Mexico, 
another to Tripoli and a third for England and so forth and there are 
pirates and the peril of the seas and rocks — yet Antonio is sufficient 
and he asks if he may speak with him. Antonio enters and Shylock, 
agitated and trembling with fear lest his opportunity might be 
lost, soliloquizes, while Bassanio and Antonio converse: 

Shylock (aside). — 

"How like a fawning publican he looks! 
I hate him, for he is a Christian. 
But more than that, in low simplicity 
He lends out money gratis and brings down 
The rate of usance here with us in Venice, 
If I can catch him once upon the hip, 



153 



I will feed that ancient grudge I bear him. 

He hates our sacred nation and he rails, 

Even there where merchants most do congregate, 

On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, 

Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe 

If I forgive him." 

Bassanio calls and Shylock proceeds to say that he was thinking 
whether he could raise the three thousand ducats. But Tubal, 
a wealthy Jew could let him have it and he sees Antonio — that is 
he pretends to see him for the first time notwithstanding his busy 
moments of cursing and vowing vengeance. Then follows the bitter 
colloquy between the two; further requests for a definite answer 
from Shylock who, after citing Jacob and Laban, answers Antonio's 
stern question whether they are to have the three thousand ducats 
or not, in this fashion: 

"Signor Antonio, many a time and oft. 
In the Rialto you have rated me, 
About my money and my usances; 
Still I have borne it with a patient shrug 
For sufferance is the budget of our tribe. 
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat, dog 
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine. 
And all for use of that which is mine own. 
Go to, then, you come to me and say, 
'Shylock, we would have moneys.' You say so; 
You that did void your rheum upon my beard; 
And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur. 
Over your threshold; moneys is your suit. 
What should I say to you? Should I not say 
'Hath a dog money? Is it possible 
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or 
Shall I bend low and in a bondman's key 
With bated breath and whispering humbleness, 
Say this: Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; 
You spurned me such a day; another time 
You called me dog and for these courtesies 
I'll lend you these moneys?" 

There was plain notice in that to Antonio of the unforgiving 
and the vengeful nature of Shylock — but Antonio saw it not. On 
the contrary he plainly tells Shylock that again he will call him a 
dog and spit on him, and that if he lends the three thousand ducats, 
he lends not to friends but to an enemy — and Shylock glorifies in 
the guage of battle proffered by Antonio and makes his terms. 

"This will I show 
Go with me to a notary; seal me there, 
Your single bond; and in a merry sport. 
If you repay me not on such a day, 



154 



In such a place, such sum or sums as are 
Expressed in the condition, let the forfeit 
Be nominated for an equal pound 
Of your fair flesh to be cut off and taken 
In what part of your body it pleaseth me." 

Antonio is content. In fact he declares that he will not only 
sign the bond but will agree that * 'there is much kindness in the 
Jew." Of course, Bassanio protests. But, Antonio considers the 
matter in the light of a mere joke and confidently informs Bassanio 
that his return from his ventures will be thrice the sum of the bond. 
It is signed and the greatest character of the tragedy is brought 
forward. The information received by Shylock of the destruction 
of the ventures was unquestionably based on reports of observers of 
veracity and judgment. They were, however, mistaken. The 
vessels were scattered but not destroyed by storms. They appeared 
too late for Antonio to pay the bond and too late to avoid the 
vengeful judgment asked against him and the grandeur of Portia 
would have been lost in fact there would have been no Merchant 
of Venice — if the ships had come over the sea in due time. Had that 
happened, Shylock would have none the less mourned for his daughter 
Jessica — but he would have money and his home, instead of being 
stripped of both, in the decree of Portia that the alien, conspiring 
against the life of a Venetian forfeited his lands and goods, one-half 
to the State and the other half to the party sought to be injured. 
The day of reckoning comes. Antonio has not wherewith to pay 
the bond and Bassanio is in like condition, with Shylock ready to 
press his claim, and in his dire extremity Bassanio consults Portia. 

Bellario, a learned counsellor of Venice, has been asked by the 
Duke to attend the trial — so terrific in all its aspects; enforcible 
by the laws of Venice; with the complainant, Shylock, merciless 
in his demands for enforcement and refusing all offers for compromise 
— even for thrice the sum of the bloody bond. The Court opens. 
Antonio, feeling that his worldly goods are at the depths of the sea, 
that he must die at the hands of Shylock; upon whose beard he 
had spit and plainly told the Jew he would spit again, is the one 
apparently least concerned. Plainly he had little of faith and 
scant behef in the future. He was indifferent to his fate, notwith- 
standing all the good qualities with which he was invested. 

With the opening of the Court a letter from Bellario is read, in 
which he expresses his regrets over inability to attend the trial, but 
stating that he sends in his place a young Doctor of Rome, by 
name of Balthasar, and declaring that ''he never knew so young a 
body with a head so old," and Balthasar would take his place. 
Portia, alias Balthasar, enters and is welcomed. She takes her place 

155 



with the Duke and calls upon Shylock, asks his name; tells him 
of the strange nature of the bond, but that if he desire to proceed, 
the law of Venice is with him. Antonio admits that he ''stands 
within the danger'' and confesses the bond. 'Then must the Jew 
be merciful," says Portia, and Shylock with his cruel sneer asks: 
''Upon what compulsion must I? Tell me that," and Portia tells 
him: 

"The quality of mercy is not strained. 
It droppeth as the gentle dew from Heaven 
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes; 
It is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown; 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
But mercy is above this sceptred sway; 
It is enthroned in the hearts of Kings; 
It is an attribute of God Himself; 
And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 
Though Justice be thy plea, consider this. 
That in the course of Justice none of us 
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy. I have spoken thus much 
To mitigate the justice of thy plea; 
Which, if thou follow, this strict Court of Venice 
Must needs give sentence against the merchant there." 

That plea for mercy on the part of Portia was all her own. 
Her judgment after her caution to Shylock not to shed one ounce 
of blood; her judicial determination of the validity of the claims 
of Shylock if he persisted in demanding the enforcement to the 
uttermost limits were not Portia's — save in the fact of her undoubt- 
edly great intellect, her dignity of demeanor and her fearlessness. 
Those were the gifts of instruction on the part of Bellario. She was 
capable of grasping all the necessary details in her strong mentality, 
and she did grasp them and rightly grasped them. She appreciated 
the fact that the dire peril in which Antonio found himself was be- 
cause of his friendship for her husband, Bassanio, and when that 
amiable gentleman told her of the situation, without doing anything 
of moment himself, Portia set her woman's wit at work and Bellario 
told her of the law which gave force to the bond, and, no doubt, 
of the law which penalized severely any alien — and Shylock was an 
alien — who conspired against a Venetian. The plot was the plot 
of Bellario, but the execution of it was the work of Portia alone. 
While Bellario was her legal instructor, the magnificent, the un- 



156 



approachable description and explanation of the quality of mercy 
was all her own and from a true, gentle, womanly heart. The 
quality of mercy is not strained. It is not for the privileged nor 
for the few, but for all; for the privileged and for the few and for 
the multitudes equally according to deserving merits. Its gentle 
and kindly quality is perfectly described in the one sentence or line, 
telling of its dropping as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place 
beneath. Not upon favored spot — but on the place beneath, 
moistening the heart of all on earth; blessing him that giveth and 
him that taketh — an attribute of God Himself, with all earthly 
power showing likest God's power when mercy seasons justice. 

Did Portia believe that Shylock would heed her appeal for 
mercy? It is not probable. She knew of him. Bassanio had told 
her of his sordid nature, his hatred for Antonio and for all Gentiles, 
as well. But she knew that Bassanio, her husband, had received 
the three thousand ducats for the loan of which the life of Antonio 
was endangered and she knew that it was a just debt. So her 
womanly heart and gentle kindness brought from her, her most 
persuasive plea to Shylock for mercy — and it was ineffective in its 
results. 

"My deeds upon my head, I crave the law, 
The penalty and forfeit of my bond," 

was the one answer to be expected from Shylock and the one answer 
given, and Portia proceeded to the investigation necessary before 
pronouncing final judgment, with a still lingering hope, no doubt, 
that Shylock might relent. 

Bassanio pleads with Balthasar, not recognizing Portia in cap 
and gown, upon the Judge's bench beside the Duke. He beseeches 
that the law be wrested for once and asserts that he will pay the 
bond ten times over — a statement Portia undoubtedly knew sprung 
from his heart without possibility of fulfillment. But she rules 
against him. There is no power can alter an established decree, 
and Shylock cries aloud: ''A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a 
Daniel." 

Thrice the sum of the bond is offered and Portia calls attention 
to the fact. The offer is spurned, and when Portia finally tells 
Antonio that he must prepare his bosom for the knife, again Shylock 
shouts praise of the ''excellent young man". There is much of 
stage effect following. Portia suggests need of a balance to weigh 
the pound of flesh. Shylock has it. She suggests the presence of a 
surgeon. Shylock cannot find it in the bond. Then he sharpens 
his knife on the sole of his sandal. At least the great actor of a past 
day — ^Junius Brutus Booth — would sit on the floor, pull out his 



157 



knife and sharpen it on the sole of his sandals, meanwhile, as no 
doubt Shylock did, keeping a close eye on Antonio as he bade fare- 
well to his friends, with Bassanio saying: 

"Antonio, I am married to a wife, 
Which is as dear to me as life itself; 
But life, itself, my wife and all the world 
Are not esteemed with me above thy life. 
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all, 
Here to this devil to deliver you." 

And the learned, the most wise and excellent young man, as 
Shylock called Portia, heard Bassanio and judicially told him: 

''Your wife would give you little thanks for that, 
If she were by to hear you make the offer." 

Then Shylock grows impatient. The learned, the wise and most 
excellent -young man, the Daniel come to judgment, has declared 
the bond legal and Antonio has admitted its non-payment. So 
why delay? 

''We trifle time, I pray thee, pursue sentence.'' 

Portia orders Antonio to make ready and says to Shylock — 
and it is a magnificent foundation for the final rout of the usurer — 

Portia. — *'A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine ,- 
The court awards it, and the law doth give it. 

Shylock.— ''Most rightful. Judge!" 

Portia. — ^And you must cut this flesh from off his breast; 
The law allows it, and the court awards it. 

Shylock. — Most learned Judge! A sentence! Come, prepare!"* 

But Portia, having given to the law of Venice its widest in- 
terpretation; having awarded Shylock his pound of flesh; having 
appealed to him for mercy and found her persuasiveness in all its 
womanly strength and kindliness rejected, allows Shylock to reach 
the summits of his bloody desire for vengeance on the man who had 
never injured, though despising him, and the man who loaned the 
three thousand ducats to Bassanio on condition of receiving a pound 
of flesh from Antonio; thinking at the time of the certainty that 
Antonio could not pay the bond because of his wrecked vessels, 
makes ready for his vengeance fulfilled. But Portia, with a mag- 
nificent bitterness, and with the persuasiveness of the laws of Venice 
accomplishing that which her own great powers of persuasiveness 
could not accomplish in her sublimely beautiful appeal for mercy, 
halts the knife: 



158 



Portia. — 

"Tarry a little; there is something else. 
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; 
The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh;' 
Take then thy bond; take thou thy pound of flesh; 
But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed 
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate 
Unto the State of Venice." 

And Shy lock — picture his amazement — asks: '*Is that the 
law?" and Portia shows the act. Then Shylock asks for the 
amount of his bond. Bassanio offers him the three thousand ducats. 
Portia interrupts and rules that Shylock shall have his penalty — 
the penalty he, himself, had proposed — the pound of flesh. Not 
even the amount of the bond without interest, is to be his. Portia 
is inexorable. Finally, she rules that half his estate is to be for- 
feited to Antonio — ^the man he hated — and half to Venice, and Shy- 
lock pleads that his life be taken, rather than his wealth, that 
^'doth sustain my house." Then comes Antonio with the offer that 
if the Jew become a Christian — and what a Christian! — and if he 
give that of which he may die possessed of, to Lorenzo and Jessica, 
he may go free. Shylock disappears from the scene. 

Portia manages to secure from Bassanio his wedding ring and 
Nerissa, her companion, secures her wedding ring from her husband, 
Gratiano. How the two husbands explained — the one to Portia 
and the other to Nerissa, how they came to give their respective 
rings to the ''most wise young man" and to his companion, are not 
real parts of the great tragedy of the Merchant of Venice. It is a 
tragedy cumbered with that incident; with the gibberings of 
Gobbo; with the episode of the three chests. There is strength 
and pathos in the scene between Shylock and Tubal — but the real 
and the true enduring elements, episodes, characters and tragedies 
are in the fourth act in the scene in the Court; in the appeal for 
mercy; in its rejection; in the judgment of Portia, as she expressed 
it; in the halting of the knife at the breast of Antonio and in the 
passing of Shylock, with Portia the greatest character of the great 
tragedy. 



159 



j 

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i 



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I 

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i 



STRENGTH OF EXPOSITION-DRYDEN. 



ORE than one of the class said to me, after the 
lecture of yesterday: "1 could not understand 
your meaning in your opening remarks. You 
were telling of Portia and my mind reverted to 
Portia, of the Merchant of Venice, making it im- 
possible to grasp your meaning or to agree with 
your statements." Precisely! It was my inten- 
tion and my desire to attract the attention of the class, whether 
the attraction resolved itself into commendatory agreement or 
hostile criticism. The writer or the speaker who can attract atten- 
tion in his opening is one likely to hold the attention until the close. 
Where the attention attracted results in an attitude of opposition, 
so much the better. Another showing of the questions of the class, 
or the practical opposition of the class to the opening remarks, is a 
showing of the value of the strength of exposition — not in my open- 
ing, but in the opening of any written or spoken theme or essay. 

A critic in a newspaper of the highest standing had taken it on 
himself to criticize a communication in which the heroines of 
Shakespeare had been rightly considered and regarded. He had 
made statements of the object of Shakespeare in his comedies, his 
tragedies and his dramas as being only an object to amuse or interest 
not alone the people of his own age and time, but the people of all 
ages and times. That statement, in itself, was sufficient to draw 
adverse comment. While the judgment of the world is not always 
right and not always based on due thought and consideration, there 
are times and instances where the judgment is so completely general, 
universal, in fact, that it is not only accepted but the tremendous 
force of the common, the practically unanimous consent of all times, 
nations, commentators and critics must be accepted as based on 
facts carefully considered and written down by common consent 
as impregnable. That it is the judgment of the world, in all times 
since the days of Shakespeare, that he was undoubtedly a great 
Master of Language, of thought, of expression, of argumentation, of 
description and of exposition ; of human nature in all its character- 
istics, cannot longer be questioned successfully. When B. A. L. 
questioned the true greatness of Shakespeare in his statement that 
he wrote only to amuse or interest us, he failed woefully in his ele- 

161 




ment of exposition. When he wrote of him that he presented no 
soul-stirring ideals, he wrote himself down as one not capable of 
grasping the depth of thought the Great Master had and expressed 
so perfectly in his plots and in the characters of the plots. Therein 
he more than weakened his exposition. When he insists that the 
Great Master ''shows us men and women as they are" he indicates 
that Shakespeare should have gone out into the market places and 
asked the public, not gifted as he was, not understanding the emo- 
tions, the great and the debasing qualities of man, not appreciating 
the connection between men and events — he should have asked that 
public in what manner he should depict men and portray women and 
he would have gone home to his study with more diverse opinions 
than his study could hold or even his own great and masterful 
memory could hold upon its tablets. 

When B. A. L. insisted that Shakespeare shows us ''men and 
women as they are," he pays a tribute to the Great Master not ap- 
preciating what he has done. It is probable that he intended to say 
that Shakespeare shows us men and women as they were in his own 
day and time, or in days and times before his coming into the world. 
But in his statement that Shakespeare shows us "men and women 
as they are" he is admitting that so great and so perfect and so 
profound was the depth of thought of the Great Master that he 
shows us men and women as they are today, notwithstanding the 
three centuries and more since the Great Master was buried. There- 
in is another and a serious weakening of his promises. Proceeding 
further he lays it down that .... "A detailed examination of all 
the plays will signally fail to bear out the assertion that "nearly 
every play contains a heroine so good as to remain a symbol of all 
that is best in human nature, so charming as to be for all time a type 
of what is most attractive in womanhood." With that I have small 
patience! Let him attack the heroes of Shakespeare as he pleases; 
let him fail in his exposition to the utmost in that regard. If he 
had taken MacBeth, or Claudius, or Richard the Third, or Shylock, 
or any one or more of the heroes of the Great Master, he might have 
belabored them as he pleased. But when he attacks the heroines of 
Shakespeare, when there was no call on him to do it, but rushing 
into print to seek to belittle the judgment of E. R., who had asserted 
that nearly every play contains a heroine so good as to be for all time 
a type of what is most attractive in womanhood, he is entitled to the 
lash. But it is with his power, or lack of powers, of exposition and 
argumentation, or persuasion, we are concerned. 

His greatest fall in exposition is in his statement concerning 
Portia, one of Shakespeare's heroines, and in his denunciation that 
in donning man's attire and passing for a man she had lost her "ten- 

162 



der, gentle charm, her girlish grace and sweet loveliness". There 
are two characters among the heroines to whom the Great Master 
gave the name of Portia. B. A. L. did not distinguish between 
them. I am sufficiently charitable to believe that the knew there 
were two and sufficiently charitable to believe that he knew one of 
the two had not donned man's attire. While I am not willing to be- 
lieve for one brief moment that the Portia donning man's attire 
lost one particle of her womanliness, the question is of argumen- 
tation or persuasion. The reader of B. A. L. had the undoubted 
right to take either Portia as the one indicated by the critic. The 
critic, himself, by his gross failure to distinguish between the two 
gave the reader that right. The right extended to the showing of 
carelessness of exposition and to consequent faults in his persuasion. 
When one goes into the Courts of Justice with a complaint against 
his neighbor, whether civil or criminal he must make his complaint 
affirmatively and is bound by the declaration he makes. It is a 
principle governing pleadings in Courts of Justice, that which the 
complainant does not affirm, he does not demand or expect to recov- 
er. He is bound by each and every allegation he may make and the 
principle obtains in rhetorical exposition and, consequently, in rhe- 
torical persuasion or argumentation. B. A. L. did not affirm that 
it was Portia, of the Merchant of Venice who donned man's 
attire. He did not confine his complaint to her. With him 
it was simply Portia. Therefore the reader, especially the reader 
objecting to his general attack on the heroines of Shakespeare, 
had the unquestionable right to take advantage of the omis- 
sion and weaken the persuasion of B. A. L. based on a most faulty 
exposition. 

He furnishes a most excellent subject for the showing of the 
elements of rhetoric. It is solely with that end in mind that I have 
taken his contribution as an illustration, freely admitting at the 
same time that neither he, nor any other critic, can bring me to 
the estimate in which he so falsely, and in a manner of exposition so 
erroneous and an argumentation so faulty, holds the heroines of 
Shakespeare. 

It was with the intent to attract attention by reading his criti- 
cism of Portia, of the Merchant of Venice, as he intended it and 
should have so stated. And applying it to Portia, of Caesar, that I 
opened my lecture of yesterday in the manner which brought the 
questions from the class. Persuasion is great — the greatest of the 
four elements. But to be effective it must be based on exposition 
of facts, clearly, tersely and plainly stated. As suggested yesterday 
it is within the privileges of B. A. L. to caper nimbly to the front 
.and cry mercy, for that it was his intention to cite Portia, of the 

163 



Merchant of Venice and that never — no, never! — did he have 
Portia, of JuHus Caesar in his mind. His plea for mercy may be 
heard and granted. But it is the part of wisdom of the critic to 
so state his case against the Great Master as to leave no doubt of 
his aim and purpose. The lesson to be learned from the contribu- 
tion of B. A. L. needs no further explanation. 



Another of the class said to me: ''In your lecture on the rhe- 
torical, or literary elements in the thirteenth chapter of First Corin- 
thians, I waited and waited to hear you use the word, 'Unity/ 
but you did not." 

Therein there is more or less blame coming to me. The plea, 
however, which I will make is one only in extenuation. I did not 
use the word 'Unity' as it should have been used. Possibly for the 
reason that the consideration of the question involved only the 
literary elements involved — and how sublimely magnificent they 
are. I did, however, refer to the element of coherence — and there- 
fore ask for leniency if not complete pardon. Let me add this, in 
the closing hours of the session. The thirteenth chapter of First 
Corinthians impregnably shows that the element of Faith enters into 
all written or spoken themes to a degree immeasureably greater than 
we may imagine or that we may believe — no written work could 
show it more conclusively than the epistle of St. Paul to the Corin- 
thians — that is, the chapter under consideration. Faith is inspiring; 
it is helpful; in it there is strength and there is wisdom — the wisdom 
and the strength of Him from whom all gifts come and who never 
fails to bless right uses of them. 



Another question is: "What are the excellencies of Alexander's 
Feast?'' They are, peculiarly, Drydenesque! It is lyric throughout, 
therein a masterpiece. It is not a lyric that will attract the atten- 
tion of the average man for it requires knowledge of the theme of 
which it treats and of the great son of Philip. It is allegorical 
throughout, rich in the harmony of its measure, its ilt, its ryhthm, 
its chorus and its unquestionable melody. It is a tribute to music 
and to St. Cecilia, but the theme is of Jove and Jovian deities; a 
leaning to the present seems to have been in the mind of the poet as 
he wrote, and there is evidence in each and in every line that Dryden 
was at one with Alexander's Feast and Alexander's Feast one with 
him. 

164 



There's the "turn of chance" in it; the presentation of the happy 
pair; none but the brave deserving the fair, with this attribution 
to Bacchus: 

"Bacchus, ever fair and young, 
Drinking joys did first ordain; 
Bacchus blessings are a treasure; 
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure; 
Rich the treasure, 
Sweet the pleasure; 
Sweet is pleasure after pain." 

And Alexander, moved by the song of the sweet young musician 
fights all his battles over again; thrice routing his foes and thrice 
slaying the slain — in fact there rises before the mental ear the 
sound of revelry by night. When Belgium's capital had gathered 
there her beauty and her chivalry, differing in the fact that the 
battles Alexander fought over again came from invitations to 
Bacchus. '*0f Bacchus, ever fair and young" while the sounds of 
revelry in Belgium's capital of which Byron wrote preceded the great 
battle which settled the fate of Europe for a century. What are the 
excellencies of Alexander's Feast? They are in the fact that we 
have to wade the classicisms of Dry den; enjoying his rythm, his 
metre, his qualities of description — for we can see the characters in 
his charming lilt and, even though we may not admire them, we 
must pay tribute to Dryden for his presentation. It is a Hit through- 
out. There is the advice to ''take the gifts the Gods provide you," 
for beside you is the lovely Thais; in other words do not grumble at 
at Fate or over what Fate may have awarded you or which you may 
think may be in store for you. Let the harsh world wag as it will; 
we'll be gay and happy still. Much of good advice therein, but not 
coming from right sources and teaching a lesson of Fate we ought 
not to expect from Dryden. But then, we may take into considera- 
tion the fact that Alexander's Feast was written some ten years after 
his Hind and Panther. 

There is a mixture of paganism in Alexander's Feast which, so 
far as the classic form is concerned is allowable. Milton used it in 
his Lycidas, but hardly to the extent which Dryden does. It was,, 
however, the days of the classics in England; the days when the 
memories of Oxford and Cambridge still lingered in the minds of the 
throngs for whom Dryden wrote and which he considered the entire 
being of England. First eulogizing Bacchus who first ordained 
drinking joys — if any such there could be at the feast to which 
Dryden invites us — and telling us of the sweetness of the pleasure 
that follows pain, he describes the great King after the sounding of 
the trumphets and the beatings of the drums: 

165 



"Soothed with the sound the King grew vain; 
Fought all his battles o'er again; 

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain. 

The Master saw the madness rise; 

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes; 

And while he heaven and earth defies, 

Changed his heart and checked his pride. 

He chose a mournful Muse, 

Soft pity to infuse; 

He sang Darius, Great and Good 

By too severe a fate, 

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen — 

Fallen from his high estate, 

And welt'ring in his blood; 

Deserted at his utmost need. 

By those his former bounty fed; 

On the bare earth exposed he lies; 

With not a friend to close his eyes. 

With downcast looks the joyless Victor safe, 

Revolving in his alter'd soul. 

The various forms of chance below; 

And now and then a sigh he stole 

And tears began to flow." 

The chorus is in the last four hnes — and the lesson in them is not 
difficult to discern. A lesson of charity, at least of forgetfulness of 
personal vanity and glories and a recurrence to the great Darius 
fallen from high estate; weltering in his blood, deserted by those 
whom he had honored and enriched. Nothing new in the lesson. 
It has been taught in all days by hard experience and ever will be 
taught while men remain as they are — and there seems to be but 
slight hope for change in them. 

But Dryden is climbing to the summit he sees, but which none 
other can see in Alexander's Feast. Disposition having been made 
of Bacchus; the King, with the call of the trumpets and the sound 
of the drum within his soul, fights his battles over again and then 
rises from bloody to kindly thoughts — which cost him nothing. 
Therein, and in the next stanza where Love is rated in the next de- 
gree, and is crowned, though ''Musique won the cause," Dryden 
gives sign that there is something higher in store for him who walks 
in time to the ilt of the Poet. What it is the companion of the 
Poet knows not and Dryden is not ready to tell him. In the sixth 
stanza, it might seem that all the furies are unloosed. 

"Now strike the golden lyre again; 
A louder, yet and yet a louder strain. 
Break his bands of sleep asunder; 
And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder! 
Hark, hark, the horrid sound 
Has raised up his head; 

166 



As awaked from the dead; 

Amazed he stares around. 

'Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries. 

See the furies arise! 

See the snakes that they rear; 

How they hiss in their hair; 

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes. 

Behold a ghastly band; 

Each a torch in his hand! 

These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, 
And unburied remain. 
Inglorious on the plain; 
Give the vengeance due. 
To the valiant crew; 

Behold how they toss their torches on high; 

How they point to the Persian abodes, 

And glittering Temples of their hostile Gods. 

The Princess applaud with a furious joy; 

And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy. 

Thais led the way, 

To light him to his prey. 

And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy." 



We might well imagine from that excellent and complete de- 
scription, that Chaos had come again. But Dry den; with the some- 
what tangled and stately and thoroughly classic tang of his 
day and time and environment, had a definite object in view. A 
revolution was at hand. The coming of another era and the con- 
trast between the old order and the new is given excellently in the 
final stanza, succeeding the stanza which might well be called the 
Stanza of Chaos. The excellencies of Alexander's Feast have been 
questioned — but there can be no question made of the beauty of 
the climax: 

"Thus, long ago. 
Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, 
While organs yet were mute, 
Timotheus, to his breathing flute, 
And sounding lyre, 

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. 

At last Divine Cecelia came; 

Inventress of the vocal frame; 

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, 

Enlarged the former narrow bounds. 

And added length to solemn sounds, 

With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before, 

Let old Timotheus yield the prize. 

Or both divide the crown. 

He raised a Mortal to the skies! 

She brought an angel down!" 

167 



The whole story is in the concluding lines : 

"He raised a Mortal to the skies! 
She brought an angel down." 

And then comes the grand chorus! There had been a chorus 
to the first stanza, the stanza of the Feast: 

"Happy, happy pair. 
None but the brave! 
None but the brave, 
Deserve the fair." 

The chorus to the stanza of Timotheus who had placed on high 
the tuneful lyre; one to the stanza of Bacchus; to the stanza of 
the King; a chorus to the stanza of love and one to the stanza of 
Chaos. But when Divine Cecelia comes, it is the Grand Chorus, in 
the repetition of the stanza of Cecelia in which due praise is given 
Timotheus for that he had raised a mortal to the skies — but Cecelia? 
She had brought an angel unto earth. Timotheus had nature 
mother-wit and arts unknown before — but he must yield the prize 
to Cecelia for her immeasureably greater accomplishment. The 
Angel of Music she had brought to earth abides yet with us! 

We may complain with justice of the length of the journey 
Dryden plans before he takes us to the summit. But he was writing 
in an age when men had greater leisure; when their classics were 
deeper in the hearts than they are today and, after reaching the sum- 
mit and finding sublimity of vision, we forget the lengthy path and 
remember the lilt with which Dryden lightened the way. The 
registered title of the Lyric is: ''Alexander's Feast; or the "Power 
of Musique; An ode in honour of St. Cecelia's day, 1679." 

Evidently Dryden held music, no less than poetry in his heart 
Prior to his, Alexander's Feast, he wrote a song for St. Cecelia's 
Day, November 22, 1687. A song that deals with St. Cecelia, 
alone, reciting the clangor of the trumpets; the beat. of the drum; 
the soft, complaining flute, and the violin; how Orpheus could lead 
the savage race — but to quote the summarizing stanza : 

"Orpheus coul'd lead the savage race; 
And trees uprooted left their place; 
Suspicious of the lyre. 

But bright Cecelia, raised the wonder higher, 
When to her organ vocal breath was given, 
An angel heard, and straight appeared 
Mistaking earth for Heav'n." 

In his, Alexander's Feast of 1697, Dryden quotes from himself, 
or repeats from his song for St. Cecelia's Day, the coming of the 
angel, an allowable repetition for the reason that it is of his own con- 
ception, and in the Feast he uses it to contrast the work of Timotheus 

168 



and the grander accomplishment of St. CeceHa. His grand chorus 
of the song of St. Ceceha is worthy of quotation: 

"As from the Pow'r of sacred lays, 
The spheres begun to move, 
And sing the Great Creator's praise. 
To all the bless' d above; 
So when the last and dreadful hour, 
This crumbling pageant shall devour, 
The trumpet shall be heard on high. 
The dead shall live, the living die. 
And music shall untune the sky." 



The story of St. Cecelia is of great interest. She is the patroness 
of music and of musicians. She was a martyr to the Faith in the 
early days of the Church and during the persecutions of the Roman 
Emporors. She was martyred in the year 230. Frequently she is 
represented as seated at an organ, with angels listening to the strains 
of music. The organ was invented by a Benedictine monk and the 
great order was founded in the latter part of the fifth century, as I 
recollect it. In any event the crown of martyrdom had been won 
by St. Cecelia more than two centuries before the coming of the 
grandest source of music of them all — the pipe organ. Dry den 
ascribes the organ to St. Cecelia, by implication at least and the 
origin of the tradition associating her with the organ is of great 
interest. 

It was told me by the late, and the ever venerated Bishop Maes, 
now in Heaven with St. Cecelia. During one of his ad limina visits 
to Rome he visited the buried cities of Southern Italy. In and among 
the ruins were bath tubs preserved, not differing widely from these 
of today and each having two pipes for the flow of the water, the 
spigots being ornamented with the heads of lions or some other wild 
beast. When the martyrdom of St. Cecelia was determined, the 
soldiers waited for the Christian maiden as she was about to take 
her bath, or make ready for it. The pipes in those days, as in these, 
frequently quiver or ''thrum'' and when the devils in lying in wait 
for her heard the ''thrumming" of the pipes, or as the office of the 
Saint has it: "When the pipes began to thrum," they knew their 
opportunity was at hand and breaking in the door martyred her and 
added another to the glorious chronology of those who died for the 
Faith. Bishop Maes held, and with the strongest probability of 
right, that from the thrumming of the pipes, came the association 
of the glorious martyr — and the fact that the pipe organ was not 

169 



given to the grateful world for more than two centuries later than 
her death adds corroboration to the interesting statement of the 
venerated Bishop of Covington. 



There is no doubt of the great strength of Dry den. There is no 
possible question to be made of his great poetic genius and there 
should not be complaint made of his classic style, nor of his great 
desire for argumentation, especially manifested in his ''Religio 
Laici" or religion for the Laity. He had no authority to teach. 
But he did this, as all of the faith should do — he defended when 
the Faith was attacked. Some there are who think him of a change- 
able disposition. Commentators, of hostile feelings, are inclined in 
that direction. Comparisons have been made between him. and 
Pope and one, whose name I do not recall, while giving Dryden due 
need of praise, insists that Pope remained longer on the wing. It 
may be that he did. But it was on one wing, only — that wing of 
sublimity which, carried with it a devotion to the couplet at once 
tedious and tiresome. Dryden used the couplet but he used other 
forms of metre and used them admirably. 

I am not devoted to Dryden, especially. He was great, he was 
expressive, he was argumentative. But there are poems he has 
written w^hich no Catholic ever should have written nor any man, 
no matter of what Faith, in whom charity abided. But he will live, 
while English literature lives, to be read, studied and admired by 
the few, but never by the many. If Pope remained longer on the 
wing, Dryden too often remained among the forms and styles and 
sources of inspiration of a day very much earlier than his own — 
and clouds his genius thereby. There is but one who could live in 
all ages, portray all ages and draw and teach lessons from all ages 
and, compared unto him, Dryden falls heavily. He dealt in things 
of minor moment for the reason that they seemed of great moment 
to him. He knew nothing, or very little, of nature, nor of human 
nature. He was not particularly ethical in his writings and the 
surface caught him and held him too often to his own disadavntage. 
He was a seeker for place and power and a holder of both. He lived 
in a troubled and a changing time, the going of James, the Second, 
the last of the Stuarts and the coming of William and Mary. He is 
written down as a Catholic and, undoubtedly, was at one time in his 
life, with the hope that he was of the Church when the final summons 
came. But he gives strong evidence of holding to the right of 
private interpretation in his Religio Laici when he writes of the part 
Tradition holds in the Faith: 

170 



*'Must all tradition then be set aside? 
This to affirm were ignorance or pride; 
Are there not many points, some needful sure, 
To saving Faith that Scripture leaves obscure? 
Which every sect will wrest a several way, 
(For what one sect interprets, all sects may), 
We hold and say we prove from Scripture plain 
That Christ is God; the bold Socinian 
From the same Scriptures urges He's but Man. 
Now what appeal can end the important suit ; 
Both parts speak loudly, but the rule is mute. 
Shall I speak plain and in a nation free 
Assume an honest layman's liberty? 
I think, according to my little skill, 
To my own Mother Church submitting still. 
That many have been saved and many may, 
Who never heard this question brought to play. 
The unlettered Christian who beheves in grace, 
Plods on to Heaven and ne'er is at a loss." 

And from that he proceeds to argue that : 

"The few by nature formed, with learning fraught, 
Born to instruct as others to be taught. 
Must study well the sacred page and see. 
Which doctrine, this or that, doth best agree 
With the whole tenor of the work divine 
And plainest points to Heaven's revealed design." 

This is getting away from the question submitted, but I take it 
that it will be of interest. Dryden takes it on himself to announce, 
with due submission to Mother Church — of course! — that it is the 
duty of the learned to study the sacred pages, compare notes and 
then announce their interpretation. It is perilously near the doc- 
trine of private interpretation — the doctrine from which sects have 
sprung and will continue to spring until the end. Frankly, while 
studying Dryden, I would not suggest him for the student body. 



171 



FADS AND ISMS IN MODERN EDUCATION. 




CIRCULAR sent out from the office of one of the 
most prominent of all magazines in the United 
States — asks this question: ''Why does the teach- 
ing of English composition, to which modern 
schools and colleges, give so much energy, yield 
unsatisfactory results?" There is something of 



severe criticism of modern schools and colleges in 
that question. Just what the questioner means by ''modern schools 
and colleges,'' is of importance. One meaning would be found in a 
reference to schools and colleges of recent foundation, or in colleges 
accepting the proffer of the Carnegie and the Rockefeller founda- 
tions and, thereby, making themselves over, and quite new, by the 
banishment of teaching of religion from their walls, wiping it from 
their curricula and forgetting the one time foundation of all things! 
The probability, the greater probability, is that the questioner 
referred to modern methods in schools and colleges. If that be his 
mieaning, his question is not one of difficulty, but one easily answered. 

The questioner, however, proceeds to give the reason why un- 
satisfactory results come. The main reason, in his judgment, is 
that "the pupil sees in his appointed tasks no connection with his life 
as it is, or as it is likely to be." That is a following of the teaching 
of the learned Professor Slosson, who would have the alumnus, after 
graduation, leave the beaten paths of history and of literature and 
take his cues of knowledge and of life from the newspaper and the 
periodical. The questioner then takes up the affirmative. Seeing 
nothing in his appointed tasks that has connection with his life as it 
is, or as it is likely to be, this follows: "Accordingly he treats his 
themes as intellectual stunts, that have to be gone through with 
simply because they are part of his course, and he fails to apply 
in his every day speech and writing the lessons he has learned in 
the class rooms. This sense of artificial ty is partly due to the sub- 
jects he is asked to write about and the literary models set before 
him for imitation. Stevenson acknowledges that he played the ape 
to Hazlitt, Lamb, Sir Thomas Browne, Montaigne, and other great 
writers of prose, but it does not follow that the average American 
youth can learn to write by the study of Newman, Pater and Steven- 
son, even when their essays are elaborately analyzed and interpreted 

173 



for him. He finds the subject outside his every-day interests, and 
the mode of treatment altogether beyond his reach. The result is 
lassitude and discouragement." 

So far goes the questioner in turning to the affirmative. What 
does he propose as a remedy? He says: * 'Enterprising teachers 
have striven to overcome these difficulties by exercises on subjects 
of immediate interest and by the use of current periodicals as models 
of styles." Then he proceeds to set forth the advantage of a book 
about to be published containing among other subjects these: 
Coney Island at Night; The New York Public Library; Motor- 
izing America; The Miracle of the Movie; How I Found the South 
Pole; Bismarck; Benedict the XV ; The Political Pope; Sleeping 
Outdoors; The Devil and the Deep Sea; Joseph Pulitzer; On 
Keeping a Barometer; What to Tell an Editor; Why America 
Doesn't Make Dyes; The Justice and the Desirability of Woman 
Suffrage; A Bulldog, not a Pug; The Builder of the Canal; In- 
surance for Everybody; The Feeble Minded; Mark Twain as Our 
Emmissary; The Servantless Cottage; Speeches of William Jen- 
nings Bryan; Miss Hinkle with the Boston Symphony; The Garden 
as a Means of Artistic Expression; Gilbert and Sulhvan; An 
American Salon of Humorists; The Pittsburgh International Ex- 
position; Fallacies of the Future and New Thinking; Tolstoy's 
Heligion; Hairpins; System versus Slippers; The Business of 
Being a Woman; The Porter's Tip; The Oldest Living Graduate; 
The Swarming of the Japanese Hive; The Wright Brothers Aero- 
plane; Impressions of Palestine ; The Tallest Office Building in the 
World — and so forth, and so on, the subjects taken from the table 
of contents being representative of themes for submission to the 
pupils of the schools and colleges for study and as examples. The 
new project goes even farther than that of Professor Slosson who 
generalized. The new volume is specific in its selection of themes. 
It is true the new curriculum — the new literary curriculum — is for 
boys in schools and young men in colleges. That is plainly seen in 
the use of the personal pronoun, masculine gender. But there are 
also girls in academies and colleges and universities, and it is not for 
one brief moment to be believed that the author of the new volume 
would be so cruel as to except girls and young women from the 
blessings of the modern literary curriculum. It may be, of course, 
that the author knew that women would not leave the beaten paths 
of history and literature, as Professor Slosson advised, and take to 
the magazine or newspper as the guide to accomplishments in litera- 
ture, but that they would hold fast to that which is good. In any 
event the new volume shows the trend of educational methods of 
today. 

174 



It may be that the * 'average American youth" cannot learn to 
write by the study of Newman, Pater or Stevenson — even when 
their essays are elaborately analyzed and interpreted for him. If he 
cannot learn from Newman, Pater or Stevenson, he is to be pitied » 
I am willing to go much farther and hold fast to the belief that the 
average American youth is closely near to being as bright as his 
father was, and that failure to learn to write after analysis of New- 
man or Stevenson, and after study of their works would be very 
largely due to inability on the part of the teacher. 

The editor of the new series attributes the sense of artificiality 
in the mind of the pupil to the subjects concerning which he is asked 
to write, and to the literary models set before him. So, instead of 
Newman's magnificent "Apologia'', the teacher is asked to submit to 
him 'The Miracle of the Movie", by W. P. Lawson; instead of 
Stevenson's "Treasure Island", he is to be asked to analyze and com- 
ment upon "Motorizing America"; instead of "Hamlet" he will be 
given the essay on "System and Slippers", by George Burwell 
Button; instead of Goethe's "Faust", he will be asked to write an 
essay on "The Porter's Tip", or the "Servantless Cottage", by 
Ralph Bergengren. Instead of Chateaubriand's "History of Chris- 
tianity", he will be asked to give of his brain and talent and study 
to "Hairpins" or "OnKeeping a Barometer" ; or for Scott's "Ivanhoe'^ 
he will be subjected to the exceedingly difficult and important 
pschycological duty of analogy "The justice and the Desirability of 
Women Suffrage", or "Coney Island by Night", or on the "Tallest 
Building in the World", or "The Straw Breakfast", may be handed 
over to him, wherewith to satisfy his appetite for knowledge. 

Have the faculties of the youth of America, boy or girl, young 
man or young woman, fallen so far? Has the capacity of the Ameri- 
can teacher in school or in college so far deteriorated as to render him,, 
or her, incapable of impressing on the pupils the great and the en- 
during qualities and benefits coming from study of the classics of the 
language? Is Shakespeare to be banished; Scott prohibited; 
Burke forgotten; Cooper ignored; Tennyson embargoed; Lowell 
forbidden and are the modern classics of the Strawberry Breakfast, 
or the perils of Keeping a Barometer, or Hairpins, to be substituted? 

Professor Slosson went far — but the new production is as a speed 
of the speed of the telegraph compared with the slow movement of 
Professor Slosson. He recommended the newspaper and the peri- 
odical as the guide posts for the graduate after entering on the battle 
of life. The new production selects the subjects, and while the 
Servantless Cottage may be a question of utmost importance, it can 
hardly be classed as an illuminator in comparison with Cardinal 
Newman. 

175 



Today, as is all too plainly evidenced by modernisms in teaching, 
only today is to be considered. Something that will appeal to the 
pupil as of practical value; of a market value as Professor Squires, 
of the University of North Dakota, suggests. Nothing of the past, 
nothing of the future — all of today and only today. The dead past 
is to bury its dead — but, let learned educators of the modern stamp 
rage as they will, the time is not yet here when Shakespeare will die, 
nor Tennyson, nor Wordsworth, nor Schiller, nor Longfellow. Not 
any one of the great writers will be taken as dead, or even approach- 
ing a moribund condition. Removing high ideals and great thoughts 
of the Masters of Literature from the study of the pupil would be 
the substitution of sham for the substance, froth in the place of 
sustenance. The tendency of modernisms, if not the intention, is 
to make superficialists out of the student bodies of the land; to 
substitute materialistic holdings for Faith and to teach shallowness 
of thought instead of depth. The trouble is that many will be 
caught by the glare. It has been written that: 

"Women, like moths are easily caught by glare." 

It may be true — but the catching of men by the glare of educa- 
tional fads and fancies exceeds in easy capture the glare which might 
catch a woman. 

What would Carlyle have said, what would he have written, had 
he lived in these days of modernism — ridiculous modernism — in 
education? He held fast to his announced doctrine that : Whoever 
lives not in the Divine Idea is no true man of letters." In his criti- 
cisms of Goethe and Johnson, he extols them as men of power be- 
cause they were reverential; he criticizes Diderot and Voltaire be- 
cause of their ''gross irreverence." We do not follow Goethe in all 
things nor do we follow Johnson in all things — but each deserved 
the attribute of reverence, as Diderot and Voltaire came under his 
biting criticism for their lack of reverence — begotten of their total 
lack of Faith. Verily Carlyle was described as a rock standing in 
the midst of a turbulent stream, round which the waters raved but 
could not move him. Carlyle is quoted as abiding by reverence, 
and as condemning infidelity, because there is much more, im- 
measurely much more, depending on those who hold fast to the 
Faith to stem the tide of materialism now rushing over the land. 
Fifty years ago, yes, twenty years ago, the propositions of Professor 
Slosson and of the enlarger of his ideas in the publication of the work 
mentioned, with its subjects gravely given as peculiarly appropriate 
for use in schools and colleges, would have been looked upon as 
emanations from unsound minds. Today they are welcomed and 
held fast. Superficiality is the rule today. Materialism the prin- 

176 



cipal object of educational curricula and methods. It is today, and 
only today, to which the mind of the pupil is to be directed. The 
great lessons of the past are to be forgotten. The great Masters of 
Language and of Literature are to be thrown to the topmost shelf. 
Subjects of market value, alone, are to be inculcated and writers of 
fame and renown are to be withheld from the student and the dis- 
course on ''The Devil and the Deep Sea'' is to be substituted. It 
will not be in the schools under your charge! That is a certainty. 

It is to be noted that in not one of the subjects proposed as the 
basis of future literary education — so to call it — is there one single 
chapter on Faith and the necessity for holding Faith fast. On the 
contrary, there is a chapter on the Religion of Tolstoy and another 
on Pope Benedict the Fifteenth. ''The Political Pope" being added 
to the title in parentheses. And the public is asked to give over all 
great lessons from great Masters of Language, not regarding what 
language it may be, and take up with Ida M. TarbelFs essay on 
"The Business of Being a Woman." 

We are to cease studying the ennobling qualities of the appeal of 
Portia to Shylock; we must forget mercy and the fact that it drop-^ 
peth like the gentle rain from Heaven. That is to say that it be- 
longs to all and is not strained for the few nor for the privileged, and 
having given it over the projectors of modern educational methods 
hands out to us the essay of Mr. A. B. McDonald on "Why America 
does not Make Dyes", an important question no doubt. But a dis- 
cussion of it would not go for into making clear the meaning of Mark 
Antony as he calls and holds the crowds of the Roman citizenship 
and exhibits the power of persuasion so magnificently. For the 
abolition of the oration of Mark Antony the new schedule of studies 
would supply the anxious and the expectant pupil with the dis- 
quisition on the value of "Insurance for Everybody" — an important 
question, no doubt, but hardly appropriate in the schools in place 
of the classics of English literature, or of the literature of all lan- 
guages. 

It is materialistic throughout — yet the projectors say that they 
desire to acknowledge, with gratitude, the consents received for the 
publication of the articles named in the table of contents. Quite 
naturally consents would be given cheerfully. The disquisitions of 
the writer on "Hairpins" will have greater circulation; the essay 
of Mr. Dutton on "Systems and Shppers" will be impressed on the 
mind of the pupil in the schools or the boy in college as another 
classic, while the sketch of "The Oldest Living Graduate" will be 
analyzed as an illustration of what the modernists call "antiquated 
systems" prevailing in Catholic schools. Yet it may be ventured 
as a prediction that that same "Oldest Living Graduate" would look 

177 



with deep aversion on the modern uprootings in educational systems 
and methods today, no matter from which one of the older colleges 
he may have received his degree. There is also given an essay on: 
'Taft and Roosevelt; a Composite Study/' It is, undoubtedly, 
but hardly fitted for the schools as a classic. Let us take note of 
some real classics. As Milton wrote of Lycidas — Edward King — 
so Tennyson wrote of Edward Hallam. 

"Break, break, break, 
On thy cold gray stones, O sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter. 
The thoughts that arise in me. 
O, well for the fisherman's boy. 
That he shouts with his sister at play! 
O, well for the sailor lad, 
That he sings in his boat on the bay! 
And the stately ships go on 
To their haven under the hill; 
But, O, for the touch of a vanished hand. 
And the sound of a voice that is still! 
Break, break, break. 
At the foot of thy crags, sea! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me!" 

Brief, but beautiful! The fisherman's boy may shout and play; 
it is part of the world's great song. The stately ships go sailing to 
their havens; the mighty sea breaks at the foot of its crags, in its 
majestic and awe inspiring force — nothing there has been to cause 
the song of the fisherman's boy to cease or his happy mirth to dimin- 
ish — but the tender grace of a day that was to Tennyson is dead, 
for on that day he lost one whom he held in his heart. He is gone 
forever from him. It may be there is no great lesson in the few lines 
in which Tennyson poured out his heart. But there is pathos in 
them; there is humanity in them; there is never fading memory 
of one dear unto him but from whom, in this life at least, he is for 
all time parted. But nothing of that ennobling nature must 
be taught in the schools! Give to the pupil with a heart, and with 
love for the sublime or the beautiful the essay on "Sleeping Out- 
doors" and bid him study that as as approximating something 
practical, and leave the poets of the world and the Great Masters of 
Literature to the antiquated and the possessors of ideals — ^for market 
value are the rule today. There is another master of rhetoric; 
another with masterful genius and with perfect expression of thought 
in appropriate words — Byron: 



178 



"Roll on thou deep, thou deep blue ocean roll! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined and unknown! 
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time — 
Calm or convulsed, in breeze, in gale, in storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime. 
Dark heaving — boundless, endless and sublime, 
The image of eternity, the throne 
Of the Invisible; even from thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone 
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alonel" 

But we must not trouble ourselves with magnificent description; 
we must look to things of market value and seek to know nothing of 
the virtues or the follies and the faults of humanity; nor must we 
look to the grandeur of Nature; the sublimity of the works of God, 
nor trouble ourselves with that which appeals to a better or a higher 
nature. We will content oursleves with the essay on 'The Street'^ 
among the chapters of the projected literary guide, the author being 
Simson Strunski. In the meantime we will go back to Byron for a 
moment. He has described the great majesty of the ocean, as it 
has not been described by any other of the poets of modern days,, 
with ancient classic writers not excelling the description in the two 
verses quoted. With all its majesty, with all its grandeur, with all 
its terrors and its perfect illustration of the insignificance of man, 
Byron loves it : 

"And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, 
For I was, as it were, a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do now." 

"And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do now." What line 
could be more appealing? The terrors of the ocean were as nothing 
to the child — the youthful Byron. He loved ocean and trusted it. 
It was a pleasing fear he held of the freshening sea and in his love 
and confidence and trust, he laid his hand upon its mane — and we 
see the ocean perfectly and with clearest vision. We see Byron, the 



179 



youthful, the child B3n:'on laying his hand upon great ocean's mane, 
even as a child would lay his little hand upon his father's shoulder 
or on his mother's breast! Yet it is not for us to seek exalting or 
exalted scenes nor busy our minds in these practical days with per- 
fection of description nor with the magnificent subjects of the de- 
scriptive powers of the Masters. Let us be content with Gilbert 
and Sullivan, the authors and stage managers of Pinafore — for 
Gilbert and Sullivan are given an essay unto themselves in the last 
projected magazine of literature! But I do not believe the old order 
will give way to the new! Modernists may rave over new f angled 
fads and isms and bring many to the belief that there is true progress 
in them. True progress is to be encouraged and noted and followed. 
But when progress, so called, in educational systems and methods 
comes to the point of seeking to impress the minds of the pupil that 
the one thing worth having and holding is the thing of today and of 
practical market value. I do not believe it will be accepted, but 
will be examined and condemned. 

The latest suggestion that the pupil treats his subjects as merely 
intellectual ''stunts" that have to be ''gone through with" simply 
because they are parts of the course is not the fault of the pupil, if 
the charge be true that he looks upon his work as an intellectual 
stunt only. It would be the fault of the teacher. To me, it seems 
neither the fault of the pupil nor the fault of the teacher but the 
fault of public indifference to educational methods and systems, 
the indifference being because in this day of rush and crush the 
higher literary ideals are forgotten, if ever studied by the indifferent- 
ists. Educational boards and publishers profit by the indifference, 
with the pupil not encouraged to seek anything but things of market 
value. 

So astounding is the projection of the latest faddist, that I 
thought it advisable to speak of it to you — in whose schools fads and 
and faddisms and materialism have no place, but high ideals and 
Faith on which alone high ideals can be founded. If the program 
of the latest faddist should come to be adopted, it would simply 
mean the disenthronement of the teacher and the substitution of the 
pupil in his place. If the pupil is to be the sole judge of that which 
he should study, then it would be well to close the schools for pupils 
and place the teacher in charge of the pupil. There is, as there 
should be, progress in schools under your charge — right progress, 
but the day will never come in schools under Catholic charge when 
things only of market value will be taught. 



180 



BURKE AND CARLYLE. 




HERE are two great Englishmen in the field of 
literature, because of their unquestioned sincerity 
of purpose, their honesty, their fearlessness, their 
power of persuasion and the use to which they 
put it. There are others greater in the field of 
literature, of rhetoric, of oratory and statesman- 



ship than Burke and Carlyle — but there are no 
two better available for purpose of contrast, especially when we 
consider the widely different elements to which each addressed 
himself. 

Carlyle is rightly described as a rough rock planted in the 
middle of a turbulent stream, holding back the waves of passion 
and of miscalled progress for a moment, only to find the torrent 
roaring past him, with his vigorous protests unavailing, and only 
to find response after the passing of a generation. Carlyle saw only 
the feelings. Burke appealed to the reason, or the judgment of his 
hearers. It has been written of him that his eloquence was not 
adapted to produce success and that, as an orator, he will never be 
ranked among the masters of the art ''so long as the professed ob- 
jects of oratory shall be conviction or persuasion," Burke may not 
have had the glory of convincing others, so far as results of good 
were concerned. But not for that he is to be given a lower place 
in the ranks of great orators. The criticism of Burke is the criticism 
that success alone is deserving of merit, of honors, of rewards in 
place in history. The man who succeeds is not always the man who 
deserves success, and to make attained success the criterion of 
merit is false ethics. If the criticism were sound and should come 
to be recognized, it would place a premium on methods, without 
regard to the equities of the methods and without regard to their 
justice. Moreover, if the criticism of Burke should come to be the 
established rule, or to represent the established rule, it would be 
that right methods were not inculcated in schools of rhetoric or of 
oratory, that integrity of methods was not to be considered and 
that the way to success was to succeed. 

Did Burke hold the power of convincing, or persuading? Hav- 
ing sincere convictions. Burke failed only in convincing others — 
outwardly convincing them — because autocratic powers were 

181 



enemies to him and to all who stood with him. When we con- 
sider his manly, his noble, and his pathetic regret that the days of 
chivalry has passed and there was no Knight in France to sound the 
trumpet, enter the lists and do battle, that Marie Antoinette might 
have been saved from the bloody guillotine, it is to be admitted that 
he failed. But does failure indicate lack of powers of persuasion,, 
or argumentation? 

The world of England knew that Burke was right in his appeal 
for the Colonies; England knew and France bitterly appreciated 
the truth and the convincing power of persuasion. Burke evinced 
this in his denunciation of the bloody French Revolution. Today 
the world knows that he was right in both instances, and very largely 
knows it because of his marshalling of facts — his exposition, his de- 
scription, his narration and his argumentation — or persuasion, as 
the better word. In considering the principles of rhetoric are we 
to follow Professor Slosson and think only of today? Are we to 
expose, narrate, describe and persuade only for the current year? 
If so, then we must admit that Burke was a failure. But the prin- 
ciples of rhetoric, that is to say the principle of the art of effective- 
ness in the use of language, is not a principle of today — ^but a prin- 
ciple going back to the oldest days of literature and the rhetorical 
principles recognized in Grecian and in Roman art and culture, in 
Germany, in France, in England and in all Europe, in fact. 

In the use of the argumentative, or persuasive element of 
rhetoric Burke ever based his appeal on principle. He dealt only 
in facts, and to facts alone, as he held them to be facts, he applied 
his persuasive powers and it is to be borne in mind that persuasion 
is the most important element of effective writing or speaking. 
That the great speech of Burke failed so far as the thirteen colonies 
were concerned is an admitted fact. That it was remembered and 
studied and its effectiveness recognized by the succeeding English 
ministries is plainly evinced in the fact that the remaining colonies,, 
the Dominion of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have been 
granted the particular privileges demanded for the colonies by 
Burke in 1775. • And the fact is a complete answer to the attacks 
made on the great Conciliator by hostile critics who insist that he 
will never be ranked among the great orators, ''so long as the pro- 
fessed objects of oratory are conviction or persuasion." The powers- 
of the persuasion of Burke are now written in the history of the 
world — and teach to your pupils the fact that immediate success is 
not the sole criterion by which powers of argumentation are to be 
judged and determined. The seed that is sown may seem insignifi- 
cant, but the crop that comes later, after careful attention will be 
great. 



182 



I 



Of Keltic blood, he was not an enthusiast in the usual accepta- j 
tion of the meaning of the term. He was, as all should be, an en- 
thusiast for the right. The ordinary enthusiast loses sight of the j 
fact that the people are doing much thinking, even though the J 
thinking may not be co-incidental with the event of interest and I 
because of blindness to the fact of thoughtful people, the enthusiast, ; 
in writing or in oratory, is careless in marshalling his facts, relying j 
only on his powers of persuasion. \ 

It is also charged against Burke that he was ignorant of the 
views or the feelings of his hearers — and it is a ridiculous assertion. 

The better way to have put it — and it is an important item in the j 

teaching of rhetoric, and in explanations of the study of literature — | 

would have been to say that Burke, being thoroughly sincere in his i 

views and being desirous of bringing about right and justice, where ] 
wrong and injustice had prevailed, cared nothing for the views or 
the opinions of his audience. He sought to make stronger those who 

agreed with him; he sought to encourage and win the wavering t 

to right standards; and he sought to convince those who were in j 

opposition to him that they were following the wrong paths. To j 

hold that Burke's power, or your powers or the powers of your j 

pupils, are failures in persuasion because of lack of knowledge of the 1 

feelings of your readers or your hearers, is to hold that playing to | 

the galleries, incitement of mobs or stirring up new agitations in 1 

an audience of the discontented, is the sole evidence of possession ; 
of the powers of argumentation or persuasion. 

Burke wanted to know the reason why in all things of public ^ 

importance on which he wrote or on which he spoke, whether on the ] 

hustings or in parhament. Carlyle cared very little, if anything, \ 

for the reason why. Burke saw a thing and at once his powers of j 

investigation were called into play and rested not until all the reasons I 

had been gathered together. Carlyle saw a thing and that was \ 

sufficient for him, whether the thing he saw was based on right ] 

ethics or otherwise, was nothing to him. He saw and that was I 

enough. If he thought the thing he saw was right and good, that j 
was enough. If he believed it evil, there came his bitter and his 
violent powers of attack into play and most mercilessly. Both 
men. Burke and Carlyle, widely different though they were, were 

honest, sincere, and looked to what they considered the best hap- j 

penings to man individually and collectively. Burke was dignified, j 

cool, self-possessed and impressive and he had lived among men ; 

from his earliest days. Carlyle was emphatic, nervous, fearless and \ 

bitingly sarcastic in his writings and in his speeches. Both men i 

sought that which they believed to be right, but by ways most j 

widely apart and diverging. Burke appealed to the reason ; Carlyle ! 

183 I 



■4 



to the emotions. Always dignified in his utterances, Burke at times 
was most vigorous in his language. Carlyle was turbulent at all 
times. Burke always maintained his poise. Carlyle cared nothing 
for poise. Burke's coolness never minimized his force. The turbu- 
lence of Carlyle ever attracted his readers. Burke was ever ready 
to give reasons, or explanations. Carlyle, in his practice of appeal- 
ing to the emotions cared little for explanations and avoided them, 
though not from fear or cowardice. To him, explanations were a 
thing uncomfortable and if he understood a subject his audience 
should, likewise, be able to understand it — but understanding and 
emotions are different elements, and Carlyle's force was in his power 
over the emotions. 

Burke was an alumnus of the University of Dublin, winning 
honors in the classics and devoted, as his later career showed, to 
logic. He was not an excelling pupil — but no man has brought 
greater honor to the University than he has, and within ten years 
from the close of his college career he was in Parliament and in 
public life until the final summons came for him. 

Carlyle was an alumnus of the University of Edinburg and, 
strange to say, was an ardent student of mathematics — one of the 
exact sciences thrown away by him in later years when his appeals 
were to the emotional side rather than to the reasoning side of man- 
kind. Apparently in the earlier part of his manhood he disliked 
the crowd, and retired for several years to a solitude near Kircaldy 
— but it is evident that his retirement was but the preparation for 
the stormy life he knew was in store for him and which, if it had 
not come about of itself, he would have brought to pass. He did 
that which he believed to be right and just and cared nothing for 
the consequences. It is an excellent principle. Do right — and 
let the results take care of themselves. 

It was predicted of Carlyle that he would rise to fame — not to 
the fame coming from the most picturesque language; not from 
pitilessly scoring wrong and showing up the follies and the failings 
of men and nations, but because of his great mathematical attain- 
ments making him the honor student of the University in that 
branch. Carlyle was ambitious for fame, as Burke was not. In a 
most thoroughly characteristic letter, written in his early manhood, 
he cried out for fame. 'Think not," he wrote, ''because I talk thus, 
I am careless of literary fame. No — Heaven knows that ever since 
I have been able to form a wish, the wish of being known has been 
foremost. Oh, Fortune! Thou that givest unto each his portion of 
this dirty planet, bestow, if it shall please thee, coronets and crowns 
and principalities and purses and puddings and powers upon the 
great and the noble and the fat ones of the earth. Grant me that 

184 



with a heart of independence, unyielding to thy favors and unbend- 
ing to thy frowns, I may attain to hterary fame; and though 
starvation be my lot, I will smile that I have not been born a king.'' 

It is altogether possible, in fact it is exceedingly probable, that 
Carlyle did not know, at least did not appreciate at the time, the 
fact that in that one brief quotation from his letter, he had outlined 
his entire future. His vigorous language; his contempt for the 
titled of the earth; the wrongs and the sins of earth; his inde- 
pendence of thought and expression; his continued unyielding to 
favors and his continuous courage against frowns; his delight that 
he was not one of the privileged — all are expressed in this letter 
expressing a desire for literary fame, renown, and he won both. 

Not all that Carlyle said and not all that he wrote, is to be com- 
mended. The subject of the man and of his work are being con- 
sidered from the rhetorical viewpoint only. His powers of descrip- 
tion are marvellous — and not a detail is omitted, with special powers 
of exposition when he comes to the drawing of characters, and he is 
intensely dramatic. In one of his works he tells of the quarrels 
that for years wages between Frederick, of Prussia, and George the 
Second, of England; writing thus of George: 

''My brother, the Commodiant — George — quietly put his 
father's will in his pocket, I have heard and paid no regard to it, 
save what he was compelled to pay, by Chesterfield and others. 
Will he do the like with his poor mother's will? Patience, your 
Majesty; he is not a covetous man, self-willed and proud — always 
conscious to himself that he is the soul of honor this poor brother 
King." 

Today it is often heard, especially of men in public life when 
their abilities are questioned : ''Why, he will admit that he is a great 
man, he will willingly admit it." But we find Carlyle saying the 
same thing, though more effectively, in his statement that George, 
the Second, was always conscious to himself "that he was the soul of 
honor." 

Byron, in one of his flights of truth, spoke of George the Fourth, 
as "the fourth of the fools and oppressors called George." That was 
expressive decidedly. It appealed to the crowd — and appealed 
also to many basking in the sunshine of the court, enjoying the royal 
favor, but secretly, and with reason, agreeing with the poet. The 
expression of Carlyle is, however, more sarcastic and more expressive. 
A "fool and oppressor" was the Second George equally with the 
Fourth, viewing the quartette from the English view later taken of 
them all, and not only was he the soul of honor but he was conscious 
of the fact. 

Carlyle was somewhat too vigorous in his descriptive quality. 

185 



Unquestionably he hated shams and fought sin and crime — but he 
was persuasive in appeaUng only to the emotions. In a description 
of London and its poor and its negligent rich he writes: 

''Upwards of five hundred thousand two legged animals with- 
out feathers lie around us; their heads in night caps and full of 
foolish dreams. Riot cries aloud and staggers and swaggers in his 
rank dens; and the mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her 
pallid infant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten — all 
these heaped and huddled together with nothing but a little car- 
pentry and masonry between them; crammed in like salted fish 
in a barrel; or weltering, I should say, like an Egyptian pitcher of 
tamed vipers, each struggling to get its head above the others; 
such work goes on under that smoke of counterpane." 

It is a terrific description of conditions of the poor in great 
cities, especially in a city of the greatness of London. But was it 
effective? The public knew it, and the London public, like most 
public, was indifferent. No remedy was proposed. Carlyle un- 
doubtedly believed his very exposition of the case would bring about 
its own good results. But it did not. Conditions then in London 
and in all large cities have continued from the days of Carlyle, and 
will continue until there comes a public awakening founded not on 
modern sociological work, but on the knowledge that all, rich and 
poor, cultured and uncultured, are children of the same Father — 
and that time seems long in the future. 

Passing from the rugged description ofs cenes in the poverty- 
stricken half million district of the great city, turn for a moment to 
Thackeray's work, 'The Newcombes," and read his description of 
the death of old Colonel Newcombe: 

"At the usual evening hour the chapel began to toll, and Thomas 
Newcombe's hands outside the bed, feebly beat time. And just as 
the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and 
he lifted up his head a little and quickly said: "Adsum," and fell 
back. It was the word we used at school when names were called ; 
and lo! he whose heart was as a little child, had answered to his 
name, and stood in the presence of the Master." 

Another splendid bit of description is from the works of Cardinal 
Newman: "He would look over the Aegean from the height he had 
ascended; he would follow with his eye the chain of islands which, 
starting from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the fabled divini- 
ties of Attica, when they would visit their Ionian cousins, a sort of 
viaduct across the sea; but that fancy would not occur to him, nor 
any admiration of the dark violet billows with their white edges 
down below; nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of silver upon the 
rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the deep, then 

186 



sever, and break and spread, and shroud themselves, and disappear 
in a mist of foam; nor of the gentle, incessant heaving and pantings 
of the whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, keeping steady- 
time like a line of soldiery as they resound upon the hollow shore, he 
would not deign to notice that restless living element at all except 
to bless his stars that he was not upon it." 

What more perfect description could there be of the passing of 
a clean white soul into eternity, than that given by Thackeray of 
the death of Colonel Newcombe ? At the threshold of his real 
youth — ^his eternal youth — Colonel Newcombe, hearing the tolling 
of the chapel bell, reverts to his youth and his days at school, and 
when his name would be called, his rising in the presence of the 
Master and answering: ''Adsum." As the chapel bell tolls, he 
hears the voice of God calling him and answering ''Adsum," stands, 
as Thackeray expresses it, ''in the presence of the Master." 

Taking the description of the Aegean sea from the overlooking 
heights we see, as Newman saw and so perfectly described, the sea, 
the islands, the violet billows, their white edges; the fan-like jets 
of silver, rising, falling, shimmering and disappearing, keeping time 
like a line of soldiery as they resound along the hollow shore. We 
see it all and we see him, and pity him who saw it all, but would 
only deign to notice it to thank his stars that he was not upon it. 

With the descriptive power of Carlyle, rugged, outspoken, 
rough and vehement, with the descriptive powers of Thackeray 
and of Newman, which should have the greater powers of persua- 
sion, or argumentation? Carlyle undoubtedly appealed to the 
emotions. So did Thackeray in his description of the call of the 
Master to Colonel Newcombe as the chapel bell was tolling. New- 
man appealed to the emotions in his magnificent description of the 
Aegean Sea and of the man, blind to the sublime and the beautiful, 
who would not look upon the waves save for the purpose of thanking 
his stars that he was not upon them. And it is inevitable that the 
violence of Carlyle to the emotions marred and weakened his powers 
of persuasion. 

In her appeal to Shylock, Portia said that "The quality of 
mercy is not strained." And neither is the quality of beauty in 
expression in the works of Carlyle. Great though they are; honest 
though they are and condemnatory of wrongs though they are, 
they lose force not because of his peculiar style of expression, but 
because of his too great vehemence and too frequent far departure 
from the common rules of expression. The privileged classes feared 
him and hated him for he had no mercy on them. The other classes 
of his day read him, agreed with him in his presentation of economic 
questions and left him for coming generations to give him the right 

187 



credit due to him. He would have his own style. To him rules of 
grammar or of language were beneath him, though at the Univer- 
sity he gave due attention to them. He was himself, alone and 
always. No advice or suggestion were acceptable to him. His 
individuality was too great and it is not disrespect to him to suggest 
that something of vanity had grasped him and taken him for his 
own. He was a thinker and an expressor. His powers of persuasion 
were great, but marred ; he lacked practical sense. He cared noth- 
ing for analysis. He saw things, judged them and wrote of them as 
he felt without regard to what others might think and without 
regard to their criticisms. His was a great mind sadly in need of 
training restriction. The following is an illustration of his style 
in his History of the French Revolution: ''Away you, begone 
swiftly, ye regiments of the line, in the name of God and of his poor, 
struggling servants, sore put to live in these bad days, I mean to 
rid myself of you with some degree of severity. To feed you in 
palaces; to hire captains; and school-masters and the choicest 
* spiritual and material artificers to expend their industries upon 
you — No, by the Eternal, mark it, diaboHc friends, I mean to lay 
the leather on the backs of you." 

It came from the heart and the mind of Carlyle. It was de- 
scriptive in its few rough and blunt words. It described the punish- 
ment due to the guilty — but was it persuasive of good results? All 
Europe knew of the terrors of the French Revolution. The de- 
scriptive qualities of Carlyle were none too strong in describing the 
Reign of Terror in France— but it is to be borne in mind that his 
entire work was descriptive, and in asking the question as to its per- 
suasive or argumentative qualities, we must judge of it by asking 
what effect it would have had if he had thundered his denunciation 
while the era of blood and banishment and desolation was proceed- 
ing? He is rightly called "The Censor of the Age," and censors are 
needed at times as preventives. 

Burke, at times, rose to the heights of indignation — but ever 
was persuasive in the fact that his appeals were temperate in lan- 
guage, but most vigorous in the language used — and temperance 
and strength go hand in hand, reference now had only temperance 
in language, with his vigor to be found in his orations rather than in 
his writings. In his reflections on the French Revolution he writes: 

''I find a preacher of the Gospel profaning the prophetic and 
the beautiful ejaculation, commonly called Nunc Dimittis, made 
upon the occasion of the first presentation of Our Saviour in the 
Temple, and applying it with an inhuman and unnatural rapture, 
to the most horrid, most atrocious and afflicting spectacle that, 
perhaps, ever was exhibited to the pity and the indignation of man- 

188 



kind. This leading in triumph, a thing in its best form, unmanly 
and irreligious, which fills our preacher with such unhallowed trans- 
ports, must shock, I believe, the moral taste of every well-bred 
mind. Several English were the stupefied spectators of that tri- 
umph. It was, unless we have been strangely deceived, a spectacle 
more resembling a procession of American savages, entering into 
Onondago, after some of their murders called victories and leading 
into hovels hung round with scalps, their captives, overpowered 
with the scoffs and buffets of women as ferocious as themselves, 
much more than it resembled the triumphant pomp of a civilized 
martial nation — if a civilized nation, or any men who, with a sense of 
generosity, were capable of a personal triumph over the fallen and 
the afflicted. I must believe that the national assembly find them- 
selves in a state of the greatest humiliation in not being able to 
punish the authors of this triumph or the actors in it; and that 
they are in a situation in which any inquiry they may make upon the 
subject must be destitute even of the appearance of liberty or im- 
partiality. The apology of the assembly is found in their situation; 
but when we approve what they must bear, it is in us degenerate 
of a vitiated mind." 

There is an exposition in that paragraph; there is narration 
and description in it and persuasion — ^persuasion at least to those 
holding the elements of Faith and Charity — and while it is indig- 
nant in its tone, the indignation is justifiable and it is without the 
recklessness of Carlyle in the use of language. The paragraph 
shows how indignant protests may not only be voiced in perfect 
language, but that the indignation is all the more apparent and 
justified. No one can read the paragraph without feeling the in- 
dignation Burke so ably expressed, and without uniting with him 
in his Apologia for the National Assembly to which he attributes a 
willingness to punish the perverter of the ''Nunc Dimittis," but 
prevented, because the offender was not within its jurisdiction. 

His greatest work of a judicial character is in his prosecution of 
the impeachment proceedings instituted against Warren Hastings 
and he is charged with undue use of the invective in his magnificently 
^eat oration on the opening of the case before the House of Com- 
mons. Invective against the greatest criminal of India was due, 
and right and proper — and invective was used. So great were the 
offences against common and governmental honesty committed by 
Hastings that he himself said that considering his opportunities, 
he stood astonished at his moderation. The charge against Burke 
in the Hastings case is somewhat well founded — but he was standing 
for honest government and was prosecuting a man, who, intrusted 
with high office, had debased himself, his country and the empire 

189 



the government of which was in hands — uncontrolled and un- 
controllable. Burke was not perfect — no man is perfect and never 
will be. But in the mastery of the art of effective use of language. 
Burke makes close approach to perfection. 

Last year there came a deserved suggestion of the inutility of 
dealing with elementals in the summer course — and the suggestion, 
thankfully received, was appropriate. But it is not amiss to ask 
why this dealing with Burke and with Carlyle, with the suggestions 
of Newman and Thackeray? Not so much for your enlightment, 
but for the enlightment of those under your charge. There will be 
no orators, or very few among your pupils. But there may be, 
and it is hoped there will be writers who will add lustre to the edu- 
cational features of academies in charge of Catholic Sisterhoods and 
the inculcation of the points made and the suggestions given may 
be an advantage in bringing about an era of Catholic authorship, 
at once entertaining and persuasive. The speeches and the writings 
of Burke, apart from his invective speech on the Hastings trial, of 
Carlyle, of Thackeray and of Newman, will be of inestimable benefit 
in impressing of the qualities of the four, of the strength of the 
persuasive powers of the three and of the faults marring the per- 
suasive qualities of Carlyle. Rugged forceful, and pitiless 
though he was, where wrongs as he saw wrongs, were concerned, 
and great in his descriptive qualities with his faults to be avoided, 
especially in the gathering to himself the belief that he held all 
knowledge and that neither the suggestions of other writers and 
speakers, nor their well-timed advice, were worthy of his considera- 
tion. There are others of today in public life holding to like 
opinions — and their powers are weakened. The man who thinks 
that wisdom will die with him is the man to be pitied. Great was 
Carlyle — but greater he would have been if it were not for the im- 
pregnable ''ego" with which he wrapped himself and held himself 
aloof from all laws and rules of rhetoric, even of grammar and of 
right respect paid to the rules of both, which other men, his equals in 
knowledge, held and profited thereby. 

There is a marked contrast between the gentleness, the right 
use of forceful language, when forceful language was needed, and 
the sincerity of Newman and of Thackeray on the one side and the 
vigor of Burke and of Carlyle on the other side. Not that Burke is 
to be classed with Carlyle nor Carlyle with Burke. They were 
widely different in fundamentals. Burke was respectful to the views 
and the judgment and the opinions of others on rhetorical questions. 
He studied language and its uses and added to the force of both. 
Carlyle was a law unto himself. Burke had his faults, but Carlyle 
was over-run with them. His works are by no means tiresome; 

190 



i 



they are fascinating in their language, in their arrangement and in i 

their arraignment — yet there comes a feehng, after all, that the gro- \ 

tesqueness of his style is his leading characteristic ; and an admiration, j 

or a fascination, for the shell comes over the reader who finds him- 1 

self going back to Carlyle and digging out of the grotesqueness, the j 

real meaning and the real force which, in Burke, is recognizable at ^ 

once. The reason is much the same as the reason why the works of j 

Shakespeare are immortal and the works of Milton merely classic. 1 

It is because the personality of Milton is always present in his j 

writings, while Carlyle goes farther and persists in thrusting him- j 

self upon you whether you like it or dislike it. It is Carlyle always ■ 

in Carlyle 's works. Possibly it was unavoidable in him. He can j 
not be compared with Milton. The one dignified to an excessive 

degree and Carlyle laughing in your face and dignity an unknown ; 
quality. Yet he is, unquestionably, a great writer. His faults are 

all his own and they are faults to be avoided, even in writings of a ; 

censor of public men or of public measures. : 

Marc Anthony — the orator — was persuasive to the utmost. \ 

He had a definite object in view in his oration over the dead \ 
body of Caesar. He had come to bury Caesar — not to praise him 

— far from it. He had really come with a perfectly definite object J 

in view — to raise a riot and profit by it. Not only had he come with 1 

the sole intention of burying Caesar, but he had not the slightest ^ 

intention of praising him, immediately proceeding to inform the j 

multitudes of the self-evident fact, now as well as then, that the evil i 

that men do lives after them, while the good is oft interred with their 1 

dust — and so he would have it Caesar. And he wanted it distinctly ; 

understood that Brutus who has stabbed Caesar unto death, was ; 

a perfectly honorable man — far be it from him to hold otherwise, ; 

of course at the conclusion, notwithstanding the perfectly honorable ! 

qualities of Brutus, he takes out his kerchief and wipes his weeping i 

eyes — the persuader — and declares that his heart is in the coffin j 

there with Caesar — the melancholy thing — and that he really must ; 

pause until his heart came back to him. He was so overpowered : 
with his feehngs that he could not proceed, but the crowd proceeded. 

One of the number noted the redness of the eyes of weeping Marc \ 

Anthony — and others gave testimony of truth that he had j 

uttered — but Caesar is for another lecture, the mention of Marc | 

Anthony and his powers of persuasion being for the purpose of j 

contrast between mourning methods and the vigorous eye-dryness I 

of Carlyle. ^ 

Persuasion is the greatest of the four essentials of rhetoric. i 

The shrewd and the unscrupulous use it to advantage with the i 

crowds as Marc Anthony used it. The crowd, as a rule, is swayed j 

i 

191 ] 



by eloquence — but the eloquent persuader without facts on which 
to base his eloquence is the destructive man not alone to the public, 
but, eventually to himself. Stand with Burke in that regard. 
He was sincere in gathering and in stating his facts; he was de- 
scriptive; his narration was as close to perfection as possible and 
in his persuasive powers he was unexcelled, though equalled by 
Pitt, his contemporary. The eloquent persuader is liable to be 
overturned by some one question; by some attack on his program 
of facts. The persuader with right objects in view may not succeed 
as Burke did not in his program of conciliation and his resolutions 
and in his great oration — that is, he was not successful at the time 
of presenting his resolutions, fortified by impregnable facts, 
giving full vent to his powers of persuasion. But his resolutions 
and his orations have had full and beneficial effects in later times 
after England awakened to the fact that to tax a people without 
giving them representation was a course against natural law and 
against the plainest principles of government. Persuasion is the 
greatest of the four essentials of oral or of written language, when it 
is based on sound principles and on solid facts. 



192 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 




N MY answer to the question of the meaning of the 
author of the Hnes read by the teacher in a Cin- 
cinnati High School, I referred to him as a minor 
author, The hnes were famihar to me and so was 
the style. There was a glimpse of Tennyson 
in them and in the name of the poem— The Vision 



of Sir Launfal — and when, after class, I spoke of j 
them to some of the Sisters it was kindly suggested to me that 
Lowell, not Tennyson, was the author. My first and intuitive men- 
tal suggestion that the writer was among the minor was, therefore, ■ 
correct. That I had a doubt of the authorship for the moment \ 
is not surprising. While a busy life does much to rob the memory | 
of names, there is always in the mind or in the brain, a corner from \ 
which can be drawn the memories of long ago and it is many years l 
since I read Lowell. That, however, is not the question. The j 
question is as to the meaning of Lowell in the lines submitted: 1 

"Earth gets its price for what earth gives us; j 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, i 

The priest has his fee who comes and shrives us, i 

We bargain for the graves we lie in." ; 

The aim and the purpose of the teacher in the second High may ; 

be forgotten for the moment in considering the meaning of the \ 
author. So let us consider the entire context, not considering whether" 

the teacher in second High had read Lowell or whether she had heard j 

the lines quoted and hugged them to her heart for malicious use. j 

The lines, rounded out for examination as to Lowell's meaning, are ] 

as follows: \ 

''Earth gets its price for what earth gives us, ; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, i 

The priest has his fee who comes and shrives us, ' 

We bargain for the graves we He in. 
At the devil's booth all things are sold; 

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold." j 

The meaning of Lowell becomes more plain. The priest who i 
comes to shrive us, stands behind the devil's booth. The dross 

includes the absolution and it is but an ounce in weight — an ounce \ 

of dross, and what does the priest demand and receive for his ounce J 

of dross? He receives an ounce of gold — and the meaning of the ] 

author not only becomes more plain, but charity impels the belief j 
that Lowell wrote of the demand of the ounce of gold for the ounce 

193 \ 



\ 



of dross embodied in the Sacrament of Penance, because of in- 
vincible ignorance impelling him to believe in the demand of a fee 
in the confessional — as the teacher in second High interpreted the 
words to her pupils. 

Lowell was writing of the legend of the Holy Grail, attributing 
the legend to the ''Romancers," or, as he puts it in his epilogue: 
"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Grail, or 
Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last 
Supper with His Disciples." The term Romancers is but another 
link in the chain of evidence of bigotry pervading Lowell in his 
Vision of Sir Launfal and it was not wholly the bigotry that springs 
from ignorance for Lowell was not ignorant. He was scholarly, 
refined, a man of affairs, of wide range of reading and with a vein of 
humor and of sarcasm — largely exhibited in his Bigelow Papers 
with a knowledge of men and affairs, but ever with that cloud of 
bigotry traced from his Puritan ancestors and abiding with him at 
all times. The legend of the Holy Grail does not depend on romance 
nor on the ''Romancers." Tennyson did not so regard it in his 
treatment of the search for the Holy Grail, the sacred vessel used by 
Our Lord at the Last Supper when He gave Himself to His Apostles 
and His Disciples and to us and to those who will come after us, 
would be preserved, though remaining in concealment — would be 
most appropriate — most fitting and most devotional in all its ele- 
ments. Connected with Joseph of Arimathea and with the legend 
of the Holy Grail is the truly historic Abbey of Glastonbury in 
England. But Lowell could not avoid the practically belittling 
ascription of the legend to the "Romancers." We know, as Lowell 
did not know and could not appreciate Tradition as one of the first 
essential elements of Faith. To Lowell the legend of the Holy 
Grail was nothing but a dream — a subject for his powers of poetry 
and rhetoric. His prologue shows the fact as follows: 

"Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list. 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay, 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme 
First guessed by faith auroral flushes sent 

Along the wavering vista of his dream." 

And then bares his soul and shows his lack of faith in the first 
verse of the Vision: 

"Not only around our infancy, 
Doth heaven with all its splendor lie; 
Daily with souls that cringe and plot, 
We Sinais climb and know it not." 



194 



And who are the souls that cringe and plot, with whom we climb 
to Sinais without knowing it? The souls that cringe are the souls 
that seek the priest and pay him for his administration of the Sacra- 
ment of Penance, and the souls that plot are the souls of the priests 
who demand the ounce of gold for the ounce of dross they give in 
return; the souls that tax the beggar for the corner seeks for a 
troubled death and the souls demanding a price for the grave. 
Are there other evidences of the true intent and meaning of Lowell 
in the line, 'The priest has his fee who comes and shrives us?" 
Read his ''Extreme Unction," the opening verse of which is as fol- 
lows: 

"Go, leave me, priest, my soul would be 

Alone with the consoler Death; 
Far sadder eyes than thine will see 

This crumbling clay yield up its breath; 
These shriveled hands have deeper stains, 

Than holy oil can cleanse away 
Hands that have plucked the world's coarse grain 

As erst they plucked the flower of May." 

And the priest makes no answer. From the rhetorical viewpoint 
and considering the end in view Lowell was possibly right in picturing 
the priest as silent and making no answer to the dying man — that 
is to say from the rhetorical viewpoint of Lowell who was ingrained 
with ignorance of the work of the Catholic clergy. And yet, from 
the purely rhetorical viewpoint, Lowell would have strengthened 
his wail of the dying man, and his forgetfulness of duty, if the priest 
had been described as doing that which any priest would have done in 
like circumstances, with the dying man rejecting his counsels and 
giving the versified reasons. Lowell puts on his lips as moving him 
to the determination to die without the administration of the 
Sacrament of Extreme Unction. But Lowell knew nothing of the 
practices of the Catholic clergy or laymen and in his vanity dared to 
presume that the arguments of a dying sinner would hold the con- 
fessor in silence. 

When writing of the Holy Grail, Tennyson ever was true to the 
Christianity, to the beauty and inspiration of the legend of the 
bringing of the Cup to England by Joseph of Arimathea. Sir 
Galahad showed it. 

It was not so with Lowell in the Vision of Sir Launfal. Tennyson 
gave his soul and his heart to the legend. Lowell gave his Puri- 
tan mentality to the legend and used his greatest mastery of rhetoric 
for iconoclastic purposes. 

The legend of the Holy Grail involved in it the true meaning of 
the Last Supper, the giving of His Body and Blood not alone to the 

195 



Apostles but to all times and to the ending of the world and that was 
a thing abhorrent to the Puritan. To him, and to Lowell, the bless- 
ing of the Bread and the blessing of the Wine were mere blessings, 
or mere forms. That our Saviour could, and did, give His Body 
and His Blood in the Blessed Sacrament was not accepted by Lowell, 
as it was in fact accepted by Tennyson, though it might have been 
denied by him in controversy. Not being accepted by Lowell there 
came the iconoclastic interpretation given by him in the following 
lines: ^ 

"His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snow on the brine, 
Which mingle their sadness and quiet in one. 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon. 
And the voice that was calmer than silence said: 
*Lo, it is I, be not afraid,' 
In many climes without avail. 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail 
Behold it is here this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now. 
This crust is My Body, broken for thee. 
This water. His blood that died on the tree, 
The Holy Supper is kept indeed 
In whatso we share with another's need; 
Not what we give, but what we share. 
For the gift without the giver is bare 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor and me." 

And Lowell's object was gained. He laid his ax at the tree of Faith, 
after oiling it with the bitterness of the Puritan. He made a dream 
of the Last Supper — forgetful of the fact or ignorance of the fact, 
that without receiving the Body and Blood of our Saviour in the 
Blessed Sacrament of the altar we can not receive or retain, true 
Charity in our hearts. 

What did Lowell mean in his bit of rhetoric and a fine bit of 
rhetoric it is, when he writes: 

"Earth gets its price for what earth gives us; 
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in; 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us; 
We bargain for the graves we lie in." 

The end he had in view was an attack on the doctrine of the 
Catholic Church holding to the Divine institution of the Blessed 
Sacrament — and what was the most effective method of attack? 
First — there is the dreamer at the organ. And the institution of the 
Blessed Sacrament was to be made nothing but a dream. What 
weapon could he use in illustrating what he deemed the folly of 
believing in the Last Supper and all it involved? The institution 

196 



of a Devil's booth suggested itself to him as effective, and what next? 
The priest behind the counter in the deviFs booth, demanding and 
exacting an ounce of gold for the dross of a shrival in the confessional 
for: 

"At the devil's booth all things are sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold." 

And not alone the descendants of the Puritans read the lines and 
gave acquiescent nods of the head, but the Materialists agreed with 
Lowell as effectively showing the corruption and the human origin 
of the Catholic Church. There is a strain of attractiveness through- 
out the Vision of Sir Liunfal and when time approaching for writing 
'Tinis,'' Lowell, who has held the attention of his reader throughout, 
makes of the Holy Grail — that is of the Last Supper — nothing but a 
dream, and again the applause comes from the descendants of the 
Puritans of Plymouth Rock, from the Materialist of today, from the 
scoffers and from doubters and indifferentists, with the doubters 
and vacillators rejoicing over a loophole of escape from the injunc- 
tion that: ''Without faith, it is impossible to please God." What 
is it St. Paul says of Charity? ''Charity is patient, is kind; charity 
envieth not, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh 
no evil. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth. 
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all? 
things. Charity never falleth away; whether prophecies shall be 
made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. 

And a magnificent portrayal of charity it is. St. Paul was 
magnificently effective. He was effective when he asked when 
about to be condemned for death : "Is it lawful to condemn a Roman 
citizen unheard?" He was effective in the description of his Roman 
citizenship, and of all the rights and privileges pertaining to that 
citizenship when he said to the Roman Governor: "But I was born 
free." Great is charity and may it ever be exercised in all things. 
But not all the charity in the world can ever turn the Last Supper 
nor the words of our Saviour when He said: "This is My Body," 
"This is My Blood." Lowell sought to overturn that faith and 
seized upon the Holy Grail traditionally the Cup our Lord used and 
traditionally carried into England by Joseph of Arimathea, who 
aided in the taking of the body of our Saviour from the Cross. 
Could there have been one more appropriate, more fitting than 
Joseph of Arimathea, as the custodian of the Sacred Cup? Lowell 
can not turn or destroy the tradition by his bitter rhetoric of the 
Vision of Sir Launfal. 

Of Lowell's ability; of his mastery of the English language; 
of his forceful use of the art of rhetoric in his Bigelow Papers; of his 



197 



great scholarship, and he was not a scholar of modernisms of fads 
and of fancies; of his abilities as a pubUc official; of his abilities 
as a diplomat, I have the highest regard. Of the farce of University 
of Glasgow made when Lowell was compelled, because of his diplo- 
matic position, to decline the Provostship of the University, with the 
faculty later selecting Andrew Carnegie, I have little to say. In all 
things educational or religious, Carnegie is a destructive, because of 
his adherence to materialism. In his Vision of Sir Launfal, Lowell 
was a rhetorician of iconoclasm, but he was also a rhetorician whose 
iconoclasm was ineffective for the Faith in the Last Supper abides and 
will continue to abide until the end of time. Therein he illustrates 
the ineffectiveness of rhetoric in attacks on the foundation of Faith. 
Some might be moved by his Vision of Sir Launfal to adhere to the 
teachings of the so-called reformers, Luther and Calvin and Zwing- 
lius; the doubter or the lax and the indifferent might be moved by 
his rhetoric to continue their doubting or their indifference — bu thet 
Faith remains and will remain until the end of time. And that which 
I have said to you, in the few preceding lines, bears appropriately on 
the answer to the last examination questions submitted as to rhetoric 
and Catholic writers. 

And I ask the class to be patient with me — at least to a degree. 
Going from Cedar Grove to ''the dust and the heat of the town'' and 
to a desk somewhat exacting in its duties, there may be some lack 
of coherence in my lectures and if again I emphasize my opinion 
that Lowell meant an attack of Faith and used his poetic talents 
and he lacked genius in his poetry, and that the teacher in second 
High merely used the lines because ignorance of Catholic Faith 
and practices, as great as Lowell's ignorance, — pardon me for the use 
of emphasis possibly marred because of repetition. But this is not 
a lecture on ethics, nor a talk on Catholic Faith and practices. The 
rhetoric of Lowell is involved and so are the uses of it by him and of 
the effectiveness of his rhetoric you may easily judge. Lies are of 
ancient origin and repetition of lies too often adds to the strength, 
of the falsehoods. It has been a story old for years that the Catholic 
priest charges a fee for absolution. So has the story of the Jesuits 
teaching that the end justifies the means and it will be continued 
unto the end of time. The lies are plausibly told, rhetorically told, for 
the ancient enemy well knows that to win souls he must be as at- 
tractive as it is possible to be and he employs rhetoricians sometimes 
with their knowledge and consent, and at other times he gathers 
their labors unto himself without full appreciation by the writer 
of suggested falsehoods. 

One of the saddest examples of the misuse of rhetoric is to be 
found in the pathetic and pitiful defense of the apostolic origin of the 

198 



Church of England advanced by Dr. Pusey, one of the Oxonians of 
the time of the Oxford movement as it is called, resulting in so many 
of the most learned and the sincerest of the members of that com- 
munion shaking off the shackles of the State Church and coming 
into the fold of Mother Church. He was strong, he was forceful, 
scholarly, charitable and dangerous and would have been more so 
but for the grace that came to Newman and the others who came into 
the Church with him and was held, but there was also the rhetoric 
of Newman impregnable throughout. In other words there was also 
the effectiveness of the rhetoric of Newman sustained by the grace 
he had accepted. Pusey 's rhetoric was largely of the apologetic 
order. Within him at all times there was complete recognition of 
the validity of the orders conferred in the Catholic Church and there 
was always the stumbling block of the defect of the Edwardine 
ordinal and it was there, of necessity that the ineffectiveness of his 
words and phrases became apparent. 

I hope, most sincerely, that I have contributed something to 
ascertainment of the true meaning of Lowell in his Vision of Sir 
Launfal. My opinion is fixed. You may differ with me — but 
when you have this lecture before you in your Communities, think it 
over. To me the meaning of Lowell is plain, and even plainer was 
the motive inspiring the teacher in second High not only to use his 
lines but to add to them her ''explanation" as she would term it, 
that the Catholic paid the priest a fee for administration of the 
Sacrament of Penance. In fact, so fixed in my opinion, and so fixed 
was it from the first, that at times there has come to me a feeling 
that, possibly I misunderstood the question. But the spirit of lack 
of charity is pervading throughout Lowell's poems when he treats 
of a sacred subject. It was, apparently, part and parcel of his 
nature and that nature was exhibited in his use of words and phrases 
and that they were effective — in the wrong direction — is made plain 
by their use in the second High. The pity of it is that Lowell looked 
only on the surface when the Catholic Church was in question. He 
had heard from childhood the old time tales and the old time false- 
hoods concerning the Church. If he had but studied the Church 
instead of merely gazing on her, he would not have written of the 
fee the priest had who comes and shrives us. 



199 



i 



i 
? 

i 
! 

HEROINES OF SHAKESPEARE. i 

F LATE America has been giving space to con- j 
tributions on the question of the Faith of Shakes- j 
peare. With all possible respect for the writers i 
on the question it appears to me, at least, that ; 
it is a question settled, needing no further dis- 
cussion but when discussion begins requiring ' 
that the debators show, within themselves, and ^ 
in their writings a knowledge of the Great Master. Not all of the < 
writers have shown acquaintance other than superficial with Shakes- [ 
peare, and it is with the comments of one of that number this paper 1 
will deal. The dealing will not be with the question of Faith, save i 
as incidental, but with the language and the lack of study given as ] 
illustrative. 

In the issue of America, of July 31st, B. A. L., whomsoever he \ 

may be, answers a previous communication from E. R., ''As To j 

Shakespeare's Heroines," saying that: | 

"Now plainness, or coarseness, of speech and too great freedom of manner, ; 
which. *E. R.' grudgingly recognizes in Shakespeare's women, are decidedly in- 
dehcate and unattractive. Is it, then, 'taking puritanical offence' to deny the 

ideal womanhood of Beatrice because of her shrewishness and the nature of her ; 

remarks in Act III, Scene 1? Does Helena 'appeal to medieval chivalry' by pur- j 

suing Bertram with her unwelcome love? Does Olivia 'touch our hearts where ] 

each one's love is deepest and most sacred,' by her infatuation for Viola disguised j 

as a young man? Can Isabella be ranked as one of Shakespere's 'gentle, tender i 

heroines' in the face of her coarse, cruel denunciation of her brother's perhaps '] 

natural weakness before the gallows? Is she precisely exalting or exalted in her • 
rejection of her virgin's veil for the robes of the Duchess? Do not Imogen, Julia, 
Rosahnd, Viola, Portia, in donning male attire and passing for men, lose their 

'gentle, tender charm,' 'girlish grace' and sweet loveliness?" ; 

Later he cites Canon Sheehan being right in thinking: 'The j 

vast majority of Shakespeare's women far from types of highest and | 
noblest womanhood." For Canon Sheehan I have the most pro- 
found respect and I envy the man or the woman who has not read 
his ''Blindness of Dr. Gray,'' or his "My New Curate," for there is a 
pleasure in store for them which has passed for me in first reading. 
But that is another story. B. A. L. continues: 

"Shakespeare wrote to interest and amuse, not to present exalted soul-stirring • 

ideals. He shows us men and women as they are, rarely indeed as we should like i 

them to be. I think, then, that the original article 'As to Shakespeare's Heroines' i 

201 \ 




i 



was a trifle Utopian, and that a detailed examination of all the plays will signally 
fail to bear out the assertion that 'nearly every play contains a heroine so good as 
to remain a symbol of all that is best in human nature, so charming as to be for 
all time a type of what is most attractive in womanhood.' " 

Very frequently in one sentence the writer or the speaker shows 
his weakness; his incapacity; his complete misunderstanding or 
lack of appreciation of the subject under discussion whether the 
subject be man or events; writers, literature, rhetoric or the plainest 
rules of persuasion. 

''Shakespeare," says B. A. L., ''wrote to interest and amuse, not 
to present exalted soul-stirring ideals." So did Artemus Ward and 
Josh Billings and Burdette and the Poet of Michigan write to in- 
terest and amuse. To write it of the Great Master that he merely 
wrote to amuse or to interest is the plainest possible exhibition of 
the fact that B. A. L. is as completely unacquainted with Shakes- 
peare as the superintendent of Public Instruction of Ohio was un- 
appreciative of the duties pertaining to his important office when he 
advised the people of Ohio, in alighting from a street car to throw 
their bundles over the right arm, to step down to the street with the 
left foot and follow it with the right. There is no quarrel in this 
with the views of B. A. L. He is entitled to his opinions and views 
and to their expression and his comments are used only as illustrative 
of powers of persuasion dimmed or failing by carelessness of ex- 
pression or by failure to include all elements of facts involved. 

"Do not Imogen, Julia, Rosalind, Viola, Portia, in donning male 
attire and passing for men, lose their gentle, tender charm, girlish 
grace and sweet loveliness?" is the question put by B. A. L. in his 
contribution to the solution of the question: "As To Shakespeare's 
Heroines." 

I have most carefully read the tragedy and admit that I have not 
found the slightest fact, nor any reference to a fact, nor to a sugges- 
tion, nor to any s'cene in the tragedy that would lead me to the belief 
that Portia donned male attire and passed for a man. It may be 
there is a scene in which Portia does as B. A. L. says she does — but 
I have not found it and neither will any one of the class find it. On 
the contrary I do find that, from the very beginning and unto the 
ending, Portia maintained and held a gentleness, a dignity, a woman- 
liness — "a gentle and a tender charm," especially noticeable, im- 
pressive and persuasive considering, as we must consider the time, 
the place, the environment and the influences. There was in her 
great strength of character, there were high ideals and an instinctive 
feeling for the right, for justice, for patience and for thought before 
great actions. In fact, taking Portia alone, of all the women playing 
a part so great, so controlling and so perfectly described in the works 

202 



of Shakespeare there will be, or there should be, willing concession 
that Shakespeare drew one character standing out as an example of 
all that is admirable in womanhood — and the statement that, at 
any time, she donned male attire and passed, or sought to pass for 
a man, is ridiculous in the extreme. Let us test Portia by her words 
and her actions and see wherein, if at any time, she has lost one jot or 
tittle of her womanly grace, her dignity, her affection for her husband 
or any one of her high ideals. 

Portia. — 

"Brutus, my lord!" 

Brutus. — 

"Portia, what mean you? wherefore rise you now? 
It is not for your health thus to commit 
Your weak condition to the raw cold morning." 

Portia. — 

"Nor for yours neither. You're ungently, Brutus, 
Stole from my bed; and yesternight, at supper, 
You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, 
Musing and sighing, with your arms across, 
And when I ask'd you what the matter was, 
You stared upon me with ungentle looks; 
I urged you further; then you scratch'd your head. 
And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot; 
Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not, 
But, with an angry wafture of your hand, 
Gave sign for me to leave you: so I did; 
Fearing to strengthen that impatience 
Which seem'd too much enkindled, and withal 
Hoping it was but an effect of humor. 
Which sometime hath his hour with every man. 
It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep, 
And could it work so much upon your shape 
As it hath much prevail'd on your condition, 
I should not know you, Brutus. Dear, my lord. 
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief." 

Brutus. — 

"I am "not well in health, and that is all." 

Portia. — 

"Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, 
He would embrace the means to come by it." 

Brutus. — 

"Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed." 

Portia. — 

"Is Brutus sick? and is it physical 
To walk unbraced and suck up the humors 



203 



Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, 
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, 
To dare the vile contagion of the night 
And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air 
To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus; 
You have some sick offence within your mind, 
Which, by the right and virtue of my place, 
I ought to know of; and, upon my knees, 
I charm you, by my once-commended beauty. 
By all your vows of love and that great vow 
Which did incorporate and make us one, 
That you unfold to me, yourself, your half. 
Why you are heavy, and what men tonight 
Have had resort to you; for here have been 
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces 
Even from darkness." 

Brutus. — 

"Kneel not, gentle Portia." 

And Portia tells him she should not need to kneel if he were 
gentle. With womanly instinct and perceptive powers, she tells 
him it is not physical illness that takes him from his home and from her. 
''No, my Brutus." It is some sick offence within his mind, and she 
should know it for men had come to him that even hid their faces 
from the darkness — ^and how magnificently in that one line is the 
evidence portrayed of evil intents and purposes! Not even the 
darkness must see them — for the deeds they were planning were even 
darker! Brutus is affected, but not persuaded. ''You are my true 
and honorable wife,'' he says, and dear to him — as dear unto him 
as the ruddy drops that visit his sad heart and there can be no doubt 
of it. But not even Portia's quick and perfect powers of expression 
can move him, though he is impressed by them and by his love for 
Portia, with belief in duty, as he saw his duty holding him from the 
confidence she asked: "0, ye Gods," he exclaims, "make me worthy 
of this noble wife." 

If we needed confirmation of belief in the nobility of Portia that 
one prayer from Brutus would supply the confirmation, but we do 
not need it for it is found in her every act and thought, in every ex- 
pression of persuasion. 

"0," says B. A. L., "I was not writing of Portia, the wife of 
Brutus, but of Portia, the wife of Bassanio!" Then he should have 
so stated in his criticism of the women in the dramas, the tragedies 
and the comedies of the Great Master. Conceding, for the moment 
only, that he was right in characterization of Portia, of the Merchant 
of Venice, he has weakened his persuasion by failure to so state in 
his premises and there will be many — quite a very many, in fact — 

204 



to hasten to the right conclusion that he was wrong in his criticism 
of the "Wise Young Man/' the Daniel come to judgment. Of the 
four elements of rhetoric persuasion is the greatest, whether the 
persuasion be in written or in oral speech. But persuasion will fail 
if there is haphazardness in the exposition — in laying the premises 
and B. A. L. shows the fact all too plainly. Again bear it in mind 
I am not denying him his right of opinion — I am taking him as one 
not having studied a subject, or believing his readers have not 
studied it, or as one who has studied his subject but in his rise from 
the premises to persuasion to the conclusion he holds fast, omits 
specific statements and opens the way to his opponent to overcome 
him. 

Taking up the other Portia, considering the time in which she 
lived and the object she had in view in passing for a man — the de- 
livery of the one who had befriended her husband and now stood in 
deadly peril on the prosecution of a Jew demanding his pound of 
flesh under the barbaric law of Venice, I do not think we will find 
many, if any, to criticize her. To don male attire and to pass for 
a man in masquerading or in comedy or without some high purpose, 
would be belittling to the gentleness and the dignity of woman. 
But there was nothing of that in the other Portia — the Portia who 
so exquisitely portrayed the quality of mercy to the exultant and 
the awaiting Shylock. She was attired in cap and gown. Her 
place was on the bench in an age and time when bench and bar and 
law were held in higher esteem than today. There was solemnity 
not haste in the courts of the olden time; there was no frivolity 
and the judgments were determined in all solemnity. There was no 
departure in the case of the trial of Antonio. On the contrary from 
the opening of the court until the going of Shylock, there was not 
one in all the hall of Justice who did not pay the most profound 
respect to Portia — to the ''Wise Young Man/' and she went forth 
from the throng with like respect. 

Certainly not all the women of the Shakespearian dramas, 
tragedies and comedies can be classed among women of gentle 
charm, loveliness or grace, but did Shakespeare merely write to 
interest or to amuse? If that be so, then all critics from the be- 
ginning, all commentators, not alone of his own land but of Germany, 
of Italy, of France and of this land, have been mistaken, and only 
B. A. L. is right. It is difficult to comprehend a criticism of the 
Great Master expressed in words so tame and so utterly below the 
greatness of one whom all the world admires and in whose plays, 
dramas and tragedies especially, students of all countries have found 
lessons of the highest and of the deepest value. In his foolish es- 
timate of the value of the works of Shakespeare, B. A. L. shows a. 

205 



lack of another great element — the element of contrast and of the 
sublimity of the art of teaching by contrast possessed by Shakespeare. 

Who is there who can look over the character of Lady MacBeth 
and not learn the lesson of avoidance? Who is there to study her 
character, her ambitions, her total lack of conscience and the bitter- 
ness of the fruit she brought unto herself, who can not learn from her 
entire career the miseries wrong-doing bring upon the wrong-doer? 
Not one sweet remembrance is there of her save in the wail of the 
women coming from her death chamber! Is there no lesson in that? 
Is there no lesson to be drawn from the life of Gertrude, from her 
unhappy and her pitiful death? She was not as Lady MacBeth was 
in bloody acts. In the scene where Hamlet kills Polonius there are 
traits of better womanhood in her, quickly smothered over and only 
returning to her when death comes to her and she calls on her dear 
son Hamlet? Is there no lesson to be read in her portrayal? There 
is little, if anything, in the character of Lady MacBeth that would 
lead the student to believe that repentance was ever offered unto 
her. She dies the death she had brought upon herself as her hus- 
band dies the death she has brought upon him. But in Gertrude 
there were stirrings of conscience when Hamlet talks to her in his 
cruel way that he might be kind to her — in other words that he might 
call her back from her life after the death of her husband and her 
marriage with Claudius. But she heeded them not! Is there no 
lesson to be read in that unquestionable intention of the Great 
Master to show that the quality of mercy was not strained unto 
them who heeded the call from a baser to a better life, but not for 
them who heeded not the call, save only for a few brief moments, 
but pursued their evil ways? No lesson in that? Did the Great 
Master portray the characters of Lady MacBeth, of Portia, the wife 
of Brutus, of Portia, of the Merchant of Venice, and of Gertrude, 
the mother of Hamlet, merely to interest us or to amuse us? There 
is no ''interest" in the usual meaning of the word, and in the meaning 
in which B. A. L. uses it, in deeds of blood or deeds of treachery. 
''Shakespeare wrote to amuse us, not to present soul-stirring ideals," 
says B. A. L. Are there no soul -stirring ideals in the appeal of 
Portia to Brutus? Is there none in the appeal of Portia to Shylock 
to be merciful? Is there no soul-stirring appeal in the heartfelt per- 
suasion of Hamlet to his mother? Is there none in the scene be- 
tween Wild Harry and his dying father? No high ideal in the woeful 
farewell of Richard II. to his crown and kingdom, so perfectly de- 
scriptive of the vanities of life, of royalty no less than of the man in 
humble life? 

All things have been demanded of him that a King might not be 
thought to give consent ; his friends abandoning him ; few remaining 

206 



and Northumberland comes with the final message of debasement 
from Bolingbroke. 

King Richard. — 

"What must the King do now? Must he submit? 
The king shall do it; must he be deposed? 
The king shall be contented; must he lose 
The name of king? 0' God's name, let it go; 
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads, 
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, 
My gay apparel for an almsman's gown, 
My figured goblets for a dish of wood. 
My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff, 
My subjects for a pair of carved saints, 
And my large kingdom for a little grave, 
A little, little grave, an obscure grave; 
Or I'll be buried in the king's highway. 
Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet 
May hourly trample on their sovereign's head; 
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live; 
And buried once, why not upon my head? 
Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin! 
We'll make foul weather with despised tears; 
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn, 
And make a dearth in this revolting land. 
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes, 
And make some pretty match with shedding tears? 
As thus, to drop them still upon one place. 
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves. 
Within the earth; and, therein laid, — there lies 
Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes. 
Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see 
I talk but idly, and you laugh at me. 
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland, 
What says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty 
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die? 
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay." 

At the bidding of Bolingbroke, through Northumberland,. 
Richard goes down to the courtyard. He who had been King and 
was yet a King, but who knew that the sceptre was to pass from him 
and that the one favor to be granted unto him was that he might 
live until he should die — that is that he would not die by violence. 
Is there anything ''interesting" in that? If our hearts are not 
callous and our souls not of the nature of that of Shylock there is an 
interest in it that teaches us again the lesson the Great Master ever 
taught of abiding by high ideals and right lines of conduct in his 
tragedies, if not by lessons affirmative, as Portia taught Brutus,, 
or sought to teach him, or as Portia sought to teach Shylock, then 
by lessons through contrast — lessons showing in the lives of others. 

2 07 



the faults and the faiUngs to which all are subject and which high 
ideals and conscience teach us to avoid, not alone because of tem- 
poral effects but because of duty to our Creator. 

Is there no high ideal in Katherine, wife of Henry VIII.? Is there 
not one in Griffith's touchingly persuasive appeal to Katherine: 
"Madame! Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we 
write in water." And do we not find one of the highest of ideals 
in the answer of Katherine, one of Shakespeare's heroines: 

Katherine. — 

"After my death I wish no other herald, 
No other speaker of my hving actions, 
To keep mine honor from corruption. 
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith. 
Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me, 
With thy religious truth and modesty. 
Now in his ashes honor; peace be with him! 
Patience, be near me still; and set me lower; 
I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith, 
Cause the musicians play me that sad note 
I named my knell, whilst I sit meditating 
On that celestial harmony I go to." 

''He shows us men and women as they are; rarely, indeed, as we 
would hke them to be," says B. A. L. Indeed! Is it the duty of 
the writer to portray characters as the public would have them, 
rather than as they are? And in what better manner could men 
and women be portrayed than in a portrayal of them as they are? 
And who would be the judge of the right portrayal ''as we should 
like them to be?" The novelist? Could the great Master have 
portrayed Richard the Third otherwise than as he was, or MacBeth 
or Hamlet or Claudius, other than they were, and in the catching of 
the ear of the groundlings have taught the great lessons in the 
tragedies named? The question applies to all his tragedies. In 
his comedies he creates his characters — for there is nothing historical 
involved in them and they are but a passing show. 

When he attacks the women of Shakespeare's works, B. A. L. 
incites animosity not alone because of the general attack but be- 
cause he shows superficial study — an inexcusable offence — in his 
mention of "Portia" with nothing distinguishing the Portia of 
Ceasar from the Portia of the Merchant of Venice. In each of the 
two, high ideals are found. In the highest degree, the highest of 
the ideals come from the two Portias, rather than from any one of 
the men involved in the tragedies — not intimating that men can 
not be moved by high ideals but taking the criticism of B. A. L. 
for the purpose of showing the folly of persuasion — especially of 

208 



prejudiced persuasion — without due attention being given to the 
element of exposition, of right and carefully stated premises. 

think then/' says B. A. L., ''that the original article as to 
Shakespeare's Heroines was a trifle Utopian, and that a detailed 
examination of all the plays will signally fail to bear out the assertion 
that every play contains a heroine so good as to remain a symbol of 
all that is best in human nature, so charming as to be a type of what 
is most attractive in womanhood." 

Therein B. A. L. is right — for once — but his detailed examinations 
should bring distinctions between characters bearing like names, to 
the end that the examination may not alone be in detail but correct 
in detail. Lady MacBeth we may throw away as illustrative of high 
ideals, gentleness or womanly qualities — let me repeat it, there is 
but one touch of gentleness in that tragedy and that is in the wail 
of the women for her, although Shakespeare does not show womanly 
qualities in her; it is possible there were some to be found for her 
attendants wailed when death came to close her tragic career. We 
not only may, but we must throw away, and far away, the Merry 
Wives of Windsor — for it was not Shakespeare who wi^ote it as his 
genius would dictate, but at the command of the Queen Elizabeth 
in whom no true womanly qualities were, notwithstanding the fact 
of her great abilities and her fearlessness when England's interests 
were in the balance. We might overlook Hamlet if it were not for 
the fair Opheha. 

If there are not high ideals to be drawn from her, in the sense 
B. A. L. uses the term, is there not pathos, sincerity, devotion, 
purity of heart and soul, gentleness, refinement and — the pity of it!. 
— tragedy? And there are lessons to be learned from her life, with 
the general proposition laid down by B. A. L., that ''Shakespeare 
wrote to interest and amuse, not to present soul-stirring ideals," 
made ridiculous in the life and the portrayal of Ophelia, 

The selection of characters on which the judgment of the hero- 
ines of Shakespeare is based, is a selection of prejudice. Beatrice^ 
Olivia, Isabella, Imogen, Julia, Rosalind, Viola, Portia — and which 
Portia he does not state — are but few of the heroines, the women 
appearing in the works of the Great Master. What of Miranda, 
in the Tempest? What of the high ideals, the soul-stirring ideals 
we may learn from a study of them and of each of them? Passing 
for a moment from my own judgments, let me give the judgment of 
Rev. Dr. Hudson, not alone as showing the ideals each possessed, 
but the innate unprejudiced mind of the Presbyterian divine and 
Shakesperian critic. Dr. Hudson says: 

"In Ferdinand, as in all generous natures, 'love betters what is 
best.' Its first springing in his breast stirs his heavenward thoughts 

209 



and aspirations into ***** However thoughtless we may be 
of the divine help and guardianship for ourselves, we can hardly 
choose but crave them for those to whom our souls are knit in the 
sacred dearness of household ties. And so with this noble pair, 
the same power that binds them in the sacraments of love binds 
them in devout allegiance to the author of their being. ***** 
So much for the illustration here so sweetly given of the old principle, 
that whatsoever lies nearest a Christian's heart, whatsoever he 
tenders most dearly on earth, whatsoever draws in most intimately 
with the currents of his soul, that is the most spontaneous subject 
matter of his prayers; our purest loves thus sending us to God, 
as if from an instinctive feeling that unless God is sanctified in our 
hearts, our hearts can not retain their proper life.'' 

Though not agreeing with all the ethics of Dr. Hudson, nor in 
all his criticisms of the characters of Shakespeare, it is plain that he 
saw soul-stirring ideals in Shakespeare and from his study of the 
Great Master saw and felt, with an abiding feeling in his heart, that 
the aims and purposes and accomplishments of Shakespeare were 
far, very far indeed, above the mere intent of writing for the purpose 
of interesting or amusing us. 

B. A. L. cites Imogen, in Cymbeline, as one who in passing as a 
man shred from herself all gentleness, all sweetness and all womanly 
character. Has he studied Cymbeline? Has he studied Imogen? 
Has he taken note of the time, the events, the environment of the 
tragedy? It is necessary to consider each of these elements in 
passing judgment. It is as necessary as it is in matters of today in 
passing judgment on men or events. In Imogen, to the student who 
studies, but not to the commentator who reads superficially, and 
notwithstanding her donning the attire of a page, there are attri- 
butes of womanhood that are unexcelled. There is in her entire 
character, her conduct, her manner nothing on which condemnation 
may be had. There is a time when she gives way to anger, but it 
was a time when anger was deserved. She was without the majestic 
demeanor of Katherine, without that dignity that doth hedge a 
Queen no less than a King. That which was mean she despised; 
that which was ideal she admired; she was bright intellectually; 
she was gifted with compassion for the sorrows of others and in her 
there was not the faintest trait of selfishness. In all things she is a 
woman to be admired, as Shakespeare portrayed her; a woman to 
whom real sympathy goes out and in her masquerading as a page 
there was not one deviation from right conduct. Bitter she is at 
times, caustic, suffering she endures — and yet, with it all, in the days 
of Cymbeline, in the days of old Britain, when the Roman Caesars 
ruled the world, Imogen disguising herself as a page seeks service 

210 



with the Roman General, with a definite object in view. Is she to be 
banished as one having lost her gentleness, her womanliness, and her 
dignity? But as she is banished into the company of Portia, no 
matter which Portia, she is not to be too greatly pitied. 

Unquestionably there are heroines of Shakespeare whose lack 
of soul-stirring ideals must be admitted. But to argue from that 
premise that there is no teaching to be gathered from their por- 
trayals, no lesson to be learned, is a statement ridiculous. There 
are women in the characters portrayed by Shakespeare frivolous 
and foolish, no doubt. It is true that Shakespeare, as all great 
writers do or should do, showed men and women as they are and 
therein taught his gi'eat lessons. It is pitifully false that he wrote 
only to amuse or interest. 

Is there no lesson to be learned from that tragic scene in Richard,, 
the Third, where Queen Margaret, Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess 
of York commune with their hatreds and their griefs, the tragedies of 
their lives? Is that merely to amuse or interest us? Queen Mar- 
garet sitting down with the Duchess and Queen Elizabeth, says: 

Queen Margaret. — 

"If ancient sorrow be most reverend, 
Give mine the benefit of seniorty, 
And let my woes frown on the upper hand. 
If sorrow can admit society, 
Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine; 
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him; 
I had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him; 
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him; 
Thou hadst a Richard till a Richard kill'd him; 

Duchess. — 

"I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him; 
I had a Rutland too, thou help'st to kill him." 

Queen Margaret. — 

"Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill'd him." 

And so goes on the record of tragedies, of deaths, of blood, 
begotten all of mad ambition and ending in misery and sorrow until 
at last the Duchess exclaims: 

"O, Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes, 
God witness with me, I have wept for thine!" 

Then Queen Margaret speaks out and tells Elizabeth, in the 
most perfectly descriptive language the entire tragic story of her 
life, until the coming of the bloody Richard and the taking of the 
crown from weakling Henry: 



211 



Queen Margaret. — 

"I call'd thee then vain flourish of my fortune; 
I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen; 
The presentation of but what I was; 
The flattering index of a direful pageant; 
One heaved a-high, to be hurl'd down below; 
A mother only mock'd with two sweet babes; 
A dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble, 
A sign of dignity, a garish flag. 
To be the aim of every dangerous shot; 
A queen in jest, only to flll the scene. 
Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers? 
Where are thy children? Wherein dost thou joy? 
Who sues to thee and cries *God save the queen?' 
Where be the bending peers that flatter' d thee? 
Where be the thronging troops that follow'd thee? 
Decline all this, and see what now thou art; 
For happy wife, a most distressed widow; 
For joyful mother, one that wails the name; 
For queen, a very caitiff crown' d with care; 
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues; 
For one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me; 
For one being fear'd of all, now fearing one; 
For one commanding all, obey'd of none. 
Thus hath the course of justice wheel' d about, 
And left thee but a very prey to time; 
Having no more but thought of what thou wert, 
To torture thee the more, being what thou art. 
Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not 
Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow? 
Now thy proud neck bears half my burthen' d yoke; 
From which even here I slip my weary neck, 
And leave the burthen of it all on thee. 
Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance: 
These English woes will make me smile in France." 

Queen Elizabeth. — 

"0 thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile, 
And teach me how to curse mine enemies!" 

No lesson to be learned from the tragedy of Margaret? None 
from the sorrows of the Duchess of York, mother of King Richard? 
No soul -stirring ideals, possibly, but no more perfect description could 
be had of the terrific conditions in England than Queen Margaret 
gives to Elizabeth in the portrayals of her own sufferings. No more 
perfect argument for right ideals, for justice, for right living and for 
doing unto all that which we would have them do unto us, in the 
pitiful portrayal of that which had befallen her who, but a brief 
time before, had called Elizabeth nothing but the vain flourish of 
her fortune, nothing but a poor, shadowed painted Queen! 

212 



Only to amuse or interest us? And leaving which Portia to the 
imagination of the superficial reader! Portia failed in persuasion 
with Shylock; with the laws of Venice persuading him and with 
Portia using the power. Portia failed with Brutus, with Caesar 
dying at the hands of Brutus and Brutus also at the self -same 
hands, later. But the persuasion which o'erleaps itself and falls 
on the other side, ineffective and wounded, is the persuasion that 
fails to base itself firmly on facts unassailable; which does not 
adhere to clearness of statement and gives to the uttermost degree, 
a premise on quicksands because of carelessness of the writer, or 
because of belief that his leaders are like unto himself in right appre- 
ciation of the subject of discussion. 



213 



CHARITY EVER AN ELEMENT. 




N ANSWERING the question which EngUsh poet, 
apart from Shakespeare, possessed the greatest 
wealth of genius depth of thought and beauty 
of expression, I named Byron, apart from the 
times and the poems in which he forgot himself 
and his great powers, giving them over to base 



themes. It was my intention at the time to refer 
to one of the many beautiful traits of his character — and he had 
many — as he displayed it magnanimously, perfectly and most 
unselfishly in his tribute to the genius of Walter Scott — but I over- 
looked the extract. It will be remembered that, in the earlier part 
of his bitter ''English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," he thus wrote 
of Scott: 

"These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; 
These are the bards to the muse must bow; 
While Milton, Dry den, Pope, alike forgot, 
Resign their hallowed bays to Walter Scott." 

Later, when the better nature of Bjo-on asserted itself and brought 
him to right recognization and appreciation of the genius of Scott, 
he writes : 

"And thou, too, Scott, resign to minstrel rude, 
The wilder slogan of a border feud. 
Let others spin their meagre lines for hire; 
Enough for genius if its lines inspire! 
Let Southey sing, although his teeming muse 
Prolific every Spring, be too profuse; 
Let simple Wordsworth chime his childish verse; 
And brother Coleridge, lull the babe at nurse; 
Let spectre mongering Lewis aim at most 
To rouse the galleries or to raise a ghost; 
Let Moore still sigh; let Stratford steal from Moore, 
And swear that Camoens sang such songs of yore; 
Let Harvey hobble on, Montgomery rave; 
And godly Graham chant a stupid stave; 
Let sonneteering Bowels his strains refine 
And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line; 
Let Scott, Carlisle, Matilda and the rest. 
Of Grub Street and of Grosvenor Place the best, 
Scrawl on, till death relieves us from the strain 
Or common sense asserts her rights again. 
But thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise, 
Shoulds't leave to humbler bards ignoble lays; 
Thy country's voice, the voice of all the nine, 
Demand a hallowed harp — that harp is thine! 
215 



Say: Will not Caledon's annals yield, 
The glorious record of some nobler field, 
Than the wild foray of some plundering clan, 
Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man? 
Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food 
For Sherwood's tales of Robin Hood? 
Scotland! Still proudly claim thy native bard, 
And be thy praise his first, his best reward! 
Yet not with thee alone his name should live, 
But own the vast renown a world can give! 
Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more, 
And tell, the tale of what she was before; 
To future times her faded fame recall. 
And save her glory, though his country fall!" 

The beauty of that perfection of rhetoric is contained in the 
magnanimity of Byron. Scott, while not of the army of Scotch 
reviewers was, nevertheless apart from the army of English bards. 
He was a minstrel of the Scottish Border. Byron, in his first bitter- 
ness, remarked that Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot, resign their 
hallowed bays to Walter Scott. There can be no true genius — nor 
any development of genius without charity. Byron may not have 
had the fact in his mind, but he had charity stowed away somewhere 
in his heart. Possibly to the reviewer who grudges the attribute of 
charity to Byron, the charity was of a meagre quality. Possibly 
the grudger may assert that it was the depth of thought of Byron 
coupled with an unwilling appreciation of the genius of Scott — 
though not then so wonderfully displayed as in later years — that 
impelled him to forget the surrendering of the bays of Milton and of 
Dryden and of Pope to Scott. I am of the decided opinion that, 
while it may have been the depth of thought that impelled Byron 
to write a tribute to Scott so magnanimous, yet charity and depth 
of thought are near neighbors and close friends, with charity deepen- 
ing the thought and enabling us to see in others the qualities that 
adorn them. 

There is in the tribute to Scott by Byron the three attributes 
suggested by the question as to the greatest of English poets, apart 
from Shakespeare. There is perfection of expression; there is the 
most wonderful use of the element of contrast to be admitted by 
the reader, even though there may not be concurrence with Byron's 
classifications. Whether they were right classifications or wrong, 
Byron used them with the greatest force and effect and there 
was much truth in them. Wordsworth rises to the heights at 
times and sings majestically and with clear voice and attractive 
words, yet there are times when his verse comes very close to child- 
ishness. "Let Moore still sigh", writes Byron in his appeal to Scott 



216 



to quit the borderland and enter the world field. Moore was a 
gentle poet and a true poet and if he sighed wherein is he blameable? 
His country had been a sigh for centuries and with each sigh, with 
the fullest reasons for it, there came other oppressions to her. Moore, 
as all men and as all women are, was to a greater or less degree 
affected by environment and the environment of Moore, poet, was 
not conducive to wit and humor as qualities for which the Irish are 
distinguished — and admirable qualities they are. To the poet it was 
otherwise. ''The harp that once though Tara's Hall" is indicative 
of the feelings, the poetic feelings of Moore. But from the Byronic 
point of view in his appeal to Scott, the sighing of Moore was rightly 
and effectivley used when Byron, later in his life, recovered from his 
bitterness over the Scottish attack on his earlier efforts, he paid 
just tribute to Moore when he sang that: ''My boat is on the shore 
and my bark is on the sea, but before I go, Tom Moore, here's a 
double health to thee." 

And so it goes throughout Byron's appeal to Scott to ascend to 
the summit and take his place and rightful rank among the great 
poets with wealth of genius, depth of thought and beauty of ex- 
pression. It is rhetorical throughout! 

"Thy country's voice, the voice of all the nine, 
Demand a hallowed harp — that harp is thine!" 

Not alone Caledonia demanded of Scott that he leave the border- 
land and Lays of the Last Minstrel, but the Nine Muses demanded 
it! Not alone the poetic muse, but the eight with her! 

Turning from Scott, the individual, Byron looks into the noble 
countenance, the majestic countenance of Caledonia with her wealth 
of field and of forest romance, her Highlands, her Lochs, her Lowlands 
her ancient glory, and ask whether her annals will not yield a theme 
more glorious, a glorious record of some nobler field than some 
wild border foray, to the ennobling end that the genius of her great 
son might be put to the heroic task of recording in imperishable 
verse her ancient glories, the valor of her kilted or her Lowland 
sons, the beauty and the womanliness and the virtues of her daught- 
ers, and finishes with the appeal: 

"Scotland! Still proudly claim thy native bard, 
■ And be thy praise his first, his best reward!" 

I am not inculcating a reading of Byron. I regret to know that 
my time of inculcating anything to the Summer Class at Cedar 
Grove is drawing to its end. But the quotations I have made from 
him today are in keeping with my duties and with your wishes — 
illustrating the effectiveness of words and phrases and the right u 
and the best use of each — in other words, rhetoric and that which 



217 



pertains to it. There is rhetoric in each and every Hne of the 
quotation made by me — and whether we concur in the statement of 
Byron that Moore was a sigher and Wordsworth a singer of childish 
verse, or whether we do not concur with him, the effectiveness is 
none the less plainly apparent. Think over the rhetoric in these 
lines : 

"Thy country's voice of all the nine, 
Demand a hallowed harp — that harp is thine." 

''A hallowed harp'' is demanded and it is Scott's. Therein is 
the appeal to the patriotism, the love of country in Scott, with 
romance in the very name of Scotland and in all the stories, the 
legends, the romances of the Highland, the Loch adorned and the 
Lowland country. And what follows? The appeal to Scotland, 
herself, that she should gather unto herself her native bard — her 
great son and impel him to the right exercise of the great wealth of 
genius, the depth of thought and the beauty of expression which 
Byron found in him, notwithstanding the tangle of his border 
minstrelsy, in the lines of which the bitter scorner of Scotch Re- 
viewers, Byron, saw the beauties of expression of Scott, he appre- 
ciated the wealth of his genius and knew that in him there was a 
depth of thought that only needed the right appeal to its possessor 
to bring him to a realization of that which he could do and which was 
demanded of him that he should do. Byron saw the elements of 
greatness in Scott as we see a star beam through the cloud rifts on a 
stormy night and know that beyond the clouds other stars are 
shining and that the skies are blue and smiling. Seeing them, 
Byron makes his appeal to Scotland: 

"Scotland! Still proudly claim thy native bard, 
And be thy praise his first, his best reward!" 

Not my praise, is the meaning of Byron. Not mine, but thine, 
his dear, his native country! What a tribute there is to Scotland! 
"Thy praise, in return for his following the path his great abilities 
demanded he should follow, should not only be the first reward of 
Scott — but his best reward. Could Scott fail to comply with the 
demand? Could a demand, a righteous or a wrongful demand, 
have been more perfectly, more rhetorically made? 

Seek always the most perfect form of expression attainable. 
In an illustration of the use of the best forms of expression and of the 
folly of contentment with merely good forms of expression, let us 
fall from the heights of Byron and of Scott and observe the rhetoric 
of the bill-boards of Cincinnati, beginning some months ago, with 
this advertisement: 

"Smith's Ranges are Good — Very Good!" 



218 



It was what is called a ''taking" advertisement. It attracted 
and it held the attention of the bill-board readers. It was plain, 
simple and concise. It told the inquiring readers that Smith — 
though that is not the name in fact — was engaged in the manufacture 
of ranges; that they were good; very good, indeed. The reader 
might imagine himself in Smith's storeroom and that he heard the 
polite salesman say to the prospective purchaser who remarked 
that the range looked as though it were good: *'Yes, Madame! 
Very good!" And the purchase was concluded. 

But along comes Brown and the bill-boards of Cincinnati dis- 
■played this better bit of rhetoric: 

''Brown's Ranges are Better — Much Better." 

The bill-board reading public smiled. There was a laugh at the 
expense of Smith who merely claimed that his ranges were good, 
while Brown, taking advantage of the rhetorical lapse of Smith 
announced that his ranges were better — ''Much Better" and the 
Brown advertisement brought Smith to the front with something 
that was only "good" with Brown having something better and, 
of a certainty, his rhetoric was better than that of Smith. 

Suppose that Jones should come along and advertise that: 
"Jones' ranges are the Best. Much the Best." What then? Brown 
would continue to have the advantage. It might be said that the 
ranges of Jones were the best — but the answer would be: "No! 
I've tried Brown's ranges and they are better. Much better." 
There is not the slightest possibility of any one of the class entering 
the range field or the field of advertising and whether the ranges 
of Smith, Brown or Jones are good, better or best is not the important 
question. But, without doubt, the rhetoric of Brown was more 
perfect than that of Smith who was content to have his wares known 
as good, overlooking the fact that competitors were on the watch 
and would take every advantage possible, even rhetorical advant- 
ages. There may be a heavy fall from poetry to household goods — 
but the use of effective phrases is illuminated in both sentences. 
There is nothing but admiration for the magnificency of Byron's 
rhetoric — there is nothing but a laugh for Smith who left his gate 
ajar with Brown walking in and taking the field to himself. 



219 



TEACHING THE CLASSICS. 




HE question of the best method of teaching the 
classics should have been addressed to one of the 
two scholarly Fathers lecturing before the Sum- 
mer School. Either of the two would, no doubt, 
have answered the question more conclusively 
and more completely than the lecturer to whom 



the question has been addressed. Each of the 
two is, unquestionably, deeply versed in the classics and both are 
teachers, while to me the classics are but a memory. But in that 
very fact there is a strong argument on behalf of the classical sys- 
tem as against the modern systems which, according to the views of 
their projectors, aim only at what is called ''the practical" in the 
affairs of this changing and most changeable world of ours. The 
knowledge of the classics acquired in academy or college, is a 
knowledge never forgotten; a knowledge the influence of which is 
abiding; it is an influence always, though perhaps unconsciously, 
present in the work of after life— the work which begins after the 
college commencement is over and the real, the hard, and the 
troublesome commencement of life begins for the student. The 
influence of the classical course is apparent in the writings, in the 
orations, in the debates of after life, not alone in the greater effective- 
ness of the language but in the logical arrangement, giving greater 
impressiveness at all times and under all circumstances. 

The college man, in after life, may remember the opening sen- 
tences, ''Gallia divisa est, in partes tres," from Caesar's "de Bello 
GalUco;" "Quousque tandem abutere, Catalina, patientia nostra," 
from the great phillipic of Cicero, or "Arma, virumque cano" from 
the first canto of the Aeneid — and he will recall them at times and 
pass from them to the Greek alphabet and the beginning of the 
Gospel of St. John, "En archae en o logos" — if I have quoted it 
correctly — and he will be inclined to imagine that the opening 
sentences are all that remain to him of his study and his knowledge 
of the classics. He is mistaken. The classical influence is ever 
with him. It is with him when he prepares to write his brief for 
the Courts, before which he is to assert the rights of his client, or 
to defend his client against the assertions of another. It is with the 

221 



physician as he diagnoses a case, studies it, prepares his prescription 
or consults some high medical authority. It is with the newspaper 
man in his daily routine of gathering facts and presenting them in 
proper and effective form. It is with the editor in his study of 
men and events and his comments on them. It is with the merchant, 
with the engineer, with the inventor, and with the writer of fact or 
of fiction. All college men agree on these points — that is to say, 
all college men whose curriculum has not been one of merely ''prac- 
tical'' value, or of a ''market value." 

It may be true, as Professor Squires, of the University of North 
Dakota, insists that the college boy is likely to suggest that Virgil 
is dead and Homer with him; that Caesar no longer lives and that 
flowery Sallust contains nothing of "practical value". That is the 
point at which the duty of the teacher of classics becomes of im- 
portance. Washington is dead and so is Jefferson; Alexander 
Hamilton no longer lives and even Blackstone and Chancelor Kent 
have gone the way of all flesh — and what is there in Blackstone or 
in Kent of practical value in these days of practical teachings and 
when new laws have been enacted and new methods of judicial 
procedure have been instituted in the States? Of what benefit 
is the knowledge of Washington in these days when these United 
States have risen from a scant population of 3,000,000 in the days 
of the revolution to 100,000,000 in 1915? 

The lawyer of today who begins his practice without study of 
Blackstone or of Kent, is the lawyer whose success will be ever a 
problem, because in the writings and the commentaries of the two 
groat men are embodied the fundamental principles — the basic 
principles — on which law is built. Without that knowledge, the 
knowledge of the modernist lawyer wilFbe superficial and in his 
practice he will be simply riding for a fall — and the fall will be heavy 
when he meets his right and his well-prepared opponent. So will 
the man in public life come to a fall if he casts aside the teachings, 
the examples and the works of Washington, Jefferson and others of 
the Founders of the Republic. That is a self-evident proposition. 
So it will be with the college man who has looked with scorn on the 
classics because the writers are dead and their works contain nothing 
that has "a market value". From the study of the classics comes 
greater elegance of diction; greater strength of language; greater, 
though never superficial, polish, and the teacher who surrenders to 
the whim, or the fad, or the fancy of his pupil is the teacher of in- 
capacity. 

In Catholic educational institutions, in Dartmouth College^ 
New Hampshire, and in the colleges and universities in the Southern 
States, the classical course continues — and will continue in Catholic 

222 



institutions, with the constant spread of modernism playing havoc 
with it in State and municipal institutions where the elective system 
is the rule, and the raw boy, not knowing the world and incapable 
of rightly gauging himself, is allowed to pick and choose the sub- 
jects in the course of study that ''appeal" to him — that appeal to his 
untutored mind as having something of a "market value" in them. 
What will be the result? Simply, that the educational institutions 
holding fast to that which time and experience and results have 
shown to be good, will be the institutions sending into the world the 
real fighters in the battle of life and the real winners of the prizes 
that come to him who knows his duty, sees it, follows it to the end 
conscientiously and with ever present knowledge of duty to his 
Creator and to his fellow men. How are the classics to be taught 
the pupil? I take it for granted that the request for a lecture on 
the right method refers only to the classics of Greece and of Rome 
— to Homer's Ihad and to gentle Virgil's poetic and inspiring prac- 
tical plagiarism in his story of the voyage of Aeneas from ruined and 
devastated Trojan territories to Carthage and thence to Italy; 
to Cicero, Sallust and the others of the great class. I would teach 
the ancient classics as I would teach the classics of English literature, 
of German or of French or of Spanish literature, or of American 
literature and America is not so poor in literary products as some 
might imagine. I would get in touch with my class and have my 
class in sympathy with myself in the teaching of the classics. The 
old time ''hard-and-fast" rules that obtained in primary schools 
under earlier auspices and control in the earlier days — and in 
some colleges, as well — I would abandon. I would talk to my 
pupils and questions from them would be welcome — and sometimes 
difficult to answer. Some things there are in the march of time 
and events worthy of consideration, as there are many things to be 
avoided, and by the mutual sympathy between pupil and teacher, 
the partnership in the classical curriculum, the avoidance of that 
which ought to be avoided and the acceptance of that which is 
worthy of acceptance will become clearer in the mind of the pupil 
and the labors of the teacher will be rewarded largely. The finan- 
cial reward of the teacher, or the professor, in municipal or in State 
institutions is great and really very comfortable — but that quality 
of reward is not the reward to which you are looking. It is the reward 
that comes from acquiring and holding the esteem and confidence 
of the pupil and in the knowledge that he, or she, has gone into the 
battle of the world equipped and bearing in his mind ever esteem 
and regard for the teacher, and realizing that the foundations having 
been rightly laid it is for him, or for her to build the right super- 
structure on the solid foundation of Faith and sound ethics. The 



223 



right standards of classical education are found in the Ratio Stu- 
diorum of the Society of Jesus, commonly called the ''Educational 
System" of the Jesuits. It was gathered together, collated and 
formulated only after the most careful study of existing systems 
and methods of Catholic institutions and orders and communities, 
one of the primary objects being the teaching of catechism to chil-^ 
dren and to the ignorant, instructing youth in primary and high 
schools and in lecturing on philosophy and theology in universities. 
The Society is a teaching order. In the fourth part of the consti- 
tution, general directions are laid down, but there was no definite 
system until Fathers Nadal, Ledersmann and others came and 
completed the work. As the colleges under the care of the Society 
increased, the definite plan was formulated and proclaimed at 
Rome, A. D. 1584, after a most careful and painstaking study of 
the works of educators, recognized as of eminence, practicability 
and results. 

The literary course is modeled after the traditionist schools 
of the Renaissance period, and Father Schweckenroth records that 
there are features common to the Ratio and to the plan of John 
Sturm, of Strasburg, ''educator and reformer.'' 

The revised Ratio was published in 1832, Latin and Greek 
being the principal subjects in the colleges. Non classical schools 
were also established. The Ratio provides rules for provincials, 
rectors of colleges and for prefects of studies, for the study of philoso- 
phy and of theology, and provision is made for the "studia inferior a" 
the literary branches. The classes of schools corresponded with 
classical schools, then the humanities, rhetoric, etc. 

To secure thoroughness, frequent repetitions were required, with 
explanations of grammar or authors in the lower grades, with lectures 
in the higher; severe punishments were prohibited and care was 
to be taken of the comfort and recreation of the pupils. The 
"emulation" prescribed by the Ratio has been attacked, but emula- 
tion is not the right subject for attack. The student should be 
encouraged, within right and conservative lines, to emulation, and 
honors are due him for his advance and his accomplishments. 



Today there is the "elective" system, one of the greatest and 
most dangerous of modern innovations. The genius and the 
talent of the pupil should be encouraged ; the teacher should study 
the membership of the class, note the tendencies and the desires 
of the pupils and encourage the development of the talent most 
apparent in the pupil and from which, on right cultivation and en- 



224 



•coui'agement, will come good results. The backward pupil, the 
pupil who is earnest but seems unable to keep up with his class is 
equally, if not more, entitled to encouragement and to sympathetic 
efforts on the part of the teacher. There are no two mentalities 
exactly alike; there are as many minds as there are pupils and 
ever will be. Boys and girls are, like moths, easily caught by 
glare, and the glare of attractiveness attaches to many pursuits and 
callings, leading the pupil, without right thought and because of 
youth and inexperience, incapable of giving right thought to the 
subject, to fields attractive in appearance but which prove in the 
end to be the field into which he should not have entered. It is 
not probable the elective system, that is the system which places all 
responsibility on the pupil in making his election of studies, will last 
for many more years. Its defects, its innate and ridiculous follies 
and poor results are beginning to make themselves felt in the busi- 
ness and in the professional world — and the college president given 
to the catching of fads is beginning to take notice. The amiable 
educator who catches the most flatteringly appearing fad is much 
given to ridiculing, or imagining that he is ridiculing that which 
he calls ''the antiquated system" of courses prevailing in Catholic 
institutions and knows not whereof he speaks. What is that sys- 
tem? It is described by the General of the Society, in 1892, as 
follows: 

'The characteristics of the Ratio are not to be found in the 
subject matter, nor in the order and succession in which different 
branches are taught, but rather in which is found the form or the 
spirit of the system. This form, or spirit, consists chiefly in the 
training of the mind which is the object, and in the various exercises 
which are the means of attaining this object." 

That the system has been proven and ever will prove to be the 
right system, is given impregnable evidence in the number, the 
standing, the influence and the great results of good that have come 
from institutions of the Catholic Church, from the earliest days of 
teaching unto the present. The classical system is the basis of 
the work in all Catholic colleges and universities and, as the object 
of the Ratio is, so is the object of Catholic institutions of learning 
— "the training of the mind, which is the object, and in the various 
exercises which are the means of attaining this object." 

The vital point of difference between the Catholic college and 
the colleges of modernism is that the others aim, as Dr. Squires 
insists, at what they think, or say they think, is the immediate 
useful or practical, or which will be useful or practical in a short 
time. The educated man is not merely a wage earner. He may 
be driven to earning his daily bread by the sweat of his brow; he 

225 



may suffer and suffer again. But there is ever a hope and a future 
and, even though the night should continue, he has within him 
that which is not to be gauged by money values and on which 
the successful man without education — the man who has been 
educated on the line which leads to the immediately practical — 
looks with envy and rightly so, with the blame properly to be 
placed on the shoulders of the modernist in education. 

There is nothing in the system which militates against or which 
forbids the establishment of other branches, nor anything denying 
their value. Science has ever held high place in Catholic institu- 
tions. The seismographs of the colleges under the care of the 
Society in St. Louis, in Cleveland, are admittedly, the most thor- 
oughly reliable and watchful. The federal observatory at Wash- 
ington is under the care of one of the Fathers of the University of 
Georgetown. In Cincinnati, St. Xavier College has established 
a College of Commerce, Finance, Accounting, Journalism and Law, 
and it is gratifying that while the University of Cincinnati found 
but one graduate in its College of Commerce, the number graduating 
from St. Xavier filled the stage of the Emery Auditorium. 

The system values the classics highly, not alone because it is 
the old system, but because it has proven to be the best and the 
most enduring means for giving the mind the desired liberal training 
and culture. 

The study of the classics gives to the mind an increased power 
of reasoning — that is to say an increased mental training. Latin 
was used, and in some European countries is still used as a common 
language of the people, and it is charged that that was one of the 
reasons, if not the controlling reason, for the place it holds in Catholic 
institutions of learning. But Father Schweckenroth points out 
that Greek was always part of the classical course in Catholic 
institutions, yet it never was a ''common language" of a people — 
not of a modern people. 

In the Ratio the typical form of education is called lecturing and 
its equivalent is used in Germany for the lecturer in universities. 
In the lower grades it means ''explanation'' while in English the 
word is "projection". The text is first read by the teacher, accur- 
ately and plainly and intelligently, as an introduction to the text. 
Then there follows the interpretation of the text, formerly a para- 
phrase of the contents in Latin — as I was taught in the olden time 
— now a translation into the vernacular; then there are linguistic 
explanations of particular sentences; study of the poetical or the 
rhetorical precepts contained in the passages — and that is excellent., 
It not alone avoids the monotony, the hard and fast duty of trans- 
lating without comment or explanation, but it shows to the pupil 

226 



that there is something else in the classic he is studying than the 
mere change of the language of ancient Rome or Greece into the 
words and phrases of his mother tongue. It shows him the meaning 
of the beauties he has perceived ; it directs his attention to beauties 
he had not discovered and it stimulates him to further efforts of his 
own. It goes farther. The pupil to whom the classics are but the 
faint m.urmur of a bygone age, finds his curiosity aroused by the 
explanations and his mind turns to the fact that, after all, there may 
be something in classical education — and the stimulation spreads 
and grows and the results are beneficient. He ceases asking him- 
self — as the learned Professor Slosson says he asks himself — what 
good are the classics? He finds something in them, the beauty 
and the value of which he knew nothing until his mind was stimu- 
lated by the teacher, and the explanations and the teaching that in 
Virgil or in Homer there was much more than merely a scanning 
lesson and that real market values are obtainable elsewhere than in 
modernized schools. 

Finally, by what is called ''erudition," that is subject explana- 
tions, there is teaching of geographical, topographical, political, 
ethical and rehgious details, as the contents of the text book maybe. 
It is in that way that accurate training, mental training, results, 
together with an understanding of subjects of importance are had far 
greater than mere understanding of the Latin or the Greek texts — 
and they, too, are of importance. If they did nothing else they 
give to the student greater elegance of expression in the use of 
his mother tongue — no matter what that mother tongue may be. 

Modern educators of the ''practical" and the "market value" 
school may profess to overlook the influence of the classics. But 
the influence can neither be overlooked nor disregarded. The 
influence of the classics is a "tie that binds" and a most wholesome, 
most pleasant and invigorating influence it is. 

One critic says that the classical system is too formal and 
too mechanical. That is foolish nonsense. So far as the mechanical 
feature is concerned, the public schools of Cincinnati, following the 
example of other cities, contain within them carpenter's schools and 
other mechanical schools, with the latest being a regular factory 
school where the anvils ring on the metal, the wheels go round and 
round and the boys are taught that the material things of this life, 
the money making things are the things alone to be considered; 

It is charged that the system of classics "obliterates" inde- 
pendence of thought. That is a ridiculous statement. It is, how- 
ever, a certainty that public schools, endowed educational institu- 
tions and State and municipal colleges and universities are not 
teaching right thought in holding up to the unformed minds of the 

227 



students, that today alone is to be considered; that the dead past 
be allowed to bury its dead in peace and that tomorrow there will 
be something else — but that to hold fast unto today, giving no 
thought of past or future is the right program. It is charged that- 
the system is not only narrowing but that it ties the student to a 
dead past. The method of ''explanation," mentioned herein, is 
sufficient answer to that charge. If the opponents of the system 
mean that it obliterates ''independence of thought" — that is, ma- 
terialism and rationalism — the charge is true. The system provides 
right methods of education and denies the right of "independence 
of thought" in matters of religion — there is an Infallible Teacher 
against which the storms may beat as they will, but ever ineffect- 
ively. 

How would I teach the classics? Just as I would teach the 
English classics. Be one with your classes and have your classes 
one with you. Let them know there is something more than prosody 
in the study of the classics. Something more than mere translations 
from the Latin or the Greek into the mother tongue; something 
more than a mere knowledge of the culture of Ancient Greece or 
Ancient Rome; something more than the fall of Troy; something 
of beauty in every line, in every canto, in every book. A study not 
for today alone but a study that would have its influences clinging, 
helping and directing in the expressiveness of their words or writing 
in the vernacular; something that would be of incalculable benefit 
to them in future life and work, and wholly different from the thing 
which appeals today and is considered as having done its full duty 
therein; something holding fast to more than a mere "market 
value." And if your pupils be as intelligent as the pupil of Sister- 
hoods usually is intelligent, you will not only hold your pupil fast 
to the classics but you will immeasurably benefit in the teaching. 
Talk to your pupils and let them question you on any part appearing 
in the text or question you as to its interpretation not alone lingually 
but as to its deeper meaning. 

Let there be independence of mind on the meaning of any part 
of the classics, considering them as classics only, with the independ- 
ence of mind kept within right limits and given the right direction. 
I would not follow the old time fashion of beginning at the head of 
the class and then going down to the poor thing at the foot. It 
is possible that if the poor thing were given recognition equally 
with the brilliant star at the head, she might be incited to move 
upwards and "Dux femina facti'' might move her to greater efforts. 
Do not. smile. Sisters of experience in teaching, over the words of 
an amateur, but possibly one who has thought of the subject, on 
the question of "A Method of Teaching the Classics." Having 

228 



done the best I could do, I am not entitled to be shot for not having 
done better. I know how I was taught. From Historia Sacra to 
Cicero, not one in the class knew whether it would be his fate or the 
fate of another to be called upon to rise and stand until Father 
Clement — God bless him! — was through with him. Possibly the 
victim went through the entire lesson; possibly one-half of it. 
Certain it is that the student in the class over whose face there stole 
a gleam of delight that another than himself had been called upon, 
would be the one on whom the vigilant eyes of Father Clement 
would fall, and torture came unto him if he had been negligent in 
his study, or honor if he answered the questions put to him. Fre- 
quently the membership of the class would suggest a point of view 
and Father Clement would respond or submit it to another of the 
class. Sometimes it resembled a debating society — but it ever 
showed thought and study and interest. I cannot stand with 
Professor Slosson in his advice, or suggestion, that the student 
ought to leave the beaten paths of history and of literature followed 
during his college career and look only to the newspaper or the 
periodical for his information. At times, however, I am inclined 
to the belief that the old time -beaten paths of teaching methods — 
standing the class in a rigid, straight and unbending Hne against 
the wall, with sternness the rule of the teacher and severe punish- 
ment following even a smile — should be avoided, as they are being 
avoided. I do believe, however, in respect for the teacher on the 
part of the pupils, and respect for the pupils on the part of the 
teacher. Mutual confidence, sympathetic and cordial co-operation 
on the part of both; rewards, where rewards are deserved; en- 
couragement to the bright ones of the class and encouragement and 
aid to those not so bright. 



229 



THE JEW IN SHAKESPEARE AND SCOTT. 




REQUEST is made for a contrast or comparison 
between Isaac, of York, as Scott depicts the Jew 
in Ivanhoe, and Shylock, as he is depicted in 
the Merchant of Venice. Each was a Jew, in 
rehgion. Both were Hebrews in nationaUty. 
Each showed the strength of the blood of the 



Hebrew in that maintenance of the charactetisrics 
of the race from the earhest days until the coming of the dominion 
of the Romans in Judea, and from the dispersion of the race until 
the present day and as the characteristics will be preserved unto the 
end. Shylock and Isaac were widowers; each having a daughter, 
Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac and Jessica, the daughter of Shylock. 
Both were lenders of money. Isaac a lender to kings and govern- 
ments. Shylock a lender on the rialto of Venice. Isaac consorted 
only with those of the Hebrew race. Shylock consorted with the 
Gentiles of the Rialto. Each had a dear and devoted friend. The 
friendship between them was ever more deeply fixed and fastened 
by the mourning in their hearts, brought about by knowledge and 
respect for the ancient glories of Israel and the innate knowledge 
that for them life was to be lived among the Gentiles, a hostile race, 
a contemning race and a race which spat upon them while borrowing 
their moneys and paying usurious rates of interest — common justice 
does not condemn the usury, for the Hebrew knew that between him 
and the Gentile in courts of Justice, the Gentile held the whip hand — 
as illustrated in the case of Shylock when that magnificently wise 
youth, the second Daniel come to judgment, enforced the harsh law 
against Shylock of forfeiture not alone of the three thousand ducats 
he had loaned to Antonio, but of his lands and tenements. The 
Hebrew conspiring against the life of the Gentile was punished — 
as he should have been. The gentile conspiring against the life of 
the Hebrew was not punished as he should have been. But the 
contrast or the similarities between Shylock and Isaac are asked — 
not between the laws affecting Hebrew and Gentile. 

The question goes to Rebecca and to Jessica, for they, too, were 
of the Hebrew nation and the Jewish Faith. 

This, also, is to be noted and considered. The spitting upon 
Isaac, of York, by Front de Beauf or by de Bois Guilbert, the spit- 

231 



ting on the beard of Shylock by Antonio; the exulting cry of Gratiano 
over the defeat of Shylock, were spittings on the Jew — that is on 
the Faith. They were not spitting on the Hebrew — not spittings 
on the race. The showing is that there was bitterness at once un- 
christian and un-Cathohc in the early days, just as there is bitter- 
ness against Faith today, with legislation not directed against 
nationality but against Faith — a showing that men were men in 
the ancient days as they are today, with bitterness against Faith 
today coming, in the largest degree, from men who hold to no Faith 
themselves but seek to destroy liberty of conscience and liberty to 
hold fast to the Faith. 



Throughout the Merchant of Venice and Ivanhoe, it is the 
**Jew" that is the dog; the usurer; the one to be contemned and 
the one to be despised with Shylock and Isaac varying greatly, but 
consistently, in the manner in which they received and held the 
insults put upon them, not so greatly because of their respective 
personalities but because they were Jews. In that respect there 
is no difference between the depiction of Isaac, of York, in Ivanhoe, 
and Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice. Moreover, each appre- 
ciated the fact but each treated it from a diverging view point. 
In the depiction of the Jew it is to be remembered that while Scott 
was great, Shakespeare was greater, and that Scott had the great 
advantage of reading and studying the Merchant of Venice, even 
referring to Shylock in his Ivanhoe. 

We must take it that Shylock was of the ancient, the fighting 
and the kingly tribe of Juda — the tribe which, with the tribe of 
Benjamin, laid the foundation of the Kingdom of Judea, with Isaac, 
of York, from the trading Jacob who won from Esau his rights and 
his privileges and estate and held fast to them. Shylock was a 
Jew, but he was a fighting Hebrew. He remembered insults and 
engraved them on the tablets of his memory, to be hurled at his 
enemies as occasion might require or as circumstances would admit, 
as they admitted when Bassanio wanted the three thousand ducats 
and Antonio was willing to go on his bond. 

"Signer Antonio, many a time and oft 
In the rialto you have rated me 
About my money and my usances; 
Still I have borne it with a patient shrug; 
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. 

"Well then, it now appears you need my help, 
Go to, then; you come to me and you say: 
'Shylock, we would have monies,' you say so — 
You that did void your rheum upon my beard." 
232 



''You spurned me such a day; what should I say to you?" 
Hath a dog money? You called me a dog and for these courtesies, 
ril lend you money, and so forth and so on. That is Shylock, the 
Jew. 

Can we imagine Isaac, of York, the Jew of the days of the Cru- 
sades, answering one of the Gentiles of the conquering race, as Shy- 
lock answered Antonio? Can we imagine Isaac, of York, at any 
time or under any circumstances, plotting the cruel vengeance on 
one of his debtors that Shylock plotted upon Antonio? Isaac, of York, 
was not of the fighting blood dominant in the veins of Shylock. 
Isaac, of York, consorted with the children of Israel. Shylock 
consorted with the Gentiles, studied them; knew their strength 
and their weaknesses; laughed at them in his sleeve, despised and 
liated them. Isaac, of York, knew of the Gentiles that their want 
was gold; he had it and it would be theirs upon good security. 
But instead of despising the Gentiles he hated them as a superior, 
at least a conquering race; instead of laughing at them he feared 
them ; instead of seeking their company he avoided them as widely 
as it was possible for him to avoid them. 

Shylock was harsh; Isaac was mild; Shylock was a Jew, of the 
Hebrew nation, and characteristic throughout — but his entire heart 
and soul were in the pursuit of money and of usurious rates of in- 
terest. Isaac, of York, was gentle. He loaned money and he ex- 
acted high rates of interest — but his heart ever was with the wander- 
ing and the scattered tribes and there can be no doubt of his sin- 
cerity of constant grief and mourning for the passing of the ancient 
glories of Israel. His grief was at once national and religious. The 
grief of Shylock was for his ducats and his daughter. ''My daughter 
0, my daughter! My daughter and my ducats." 

Isaac, of York, loved his ducats beyond doubt. The one 
thing remaining to the scattered remnants of Israel was money 
and the ways of acquiring it. But when Rebecca, a daughter of 
Isaac, was at stake; when he knew not of her whereabouts but is 
in the dungeon, with Front de Beauf ready to put him to the torture 
for money; when the instruments of torture were in the hands of 
the servants of the Norman, ready to do his bidding, and he asks 
of and concerning Rebecca and Front de Beauf tells him that Re- 
becca is in the custody of Brian de Bois Guilbert, Isaac, all in- 
different to the torture in store for him shrieks out: ''Robber and 
villian! I will pay thee nothing — not one silver penny will I pay 
thee unless my daughter is delivered to me in safety and in honor." 

"Art thou in thy senses, Israelite?" is the answer of the Norman. 
■^'Has thy flesh and thy blood a charm against heated iron and 
scalding oil?" 

233 



'1 care not/' is the answer of Isaac. *'Do thy worst! My 
daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a thousand times than 
these hmbs which thy cruelty threatens. No silver will I give thee, 
unless I were to pour it molten down thy avaricious throat — no 
not a silver penny will I give thee, Nazarene, were it to save thee 
from the deep damnation thy whole life has merited. Take my life 
if thou will and say the Jew, amid his tortures, knew how to dis- 
appoint the Christian." 

Not one thought for his money; not one silver penny would he 
give the cruel and the brutal Norman; his money was as nothing 
to him. Rebecca, the gentle, the dignified, the pure-minded and 
the high-minded, the self-sacrificing Rebecca, as Jessica, the daughter 
of Shy lock was sarcastic, frivolous, undignified, sacrificing her 
father and taking his ducats with her and bringing about the cry 
of ''My daughter, 0, my daughter! My ducats and my daughter". 
Rebecca was all in all to Isaac, of York, and never lived a daughter 
more sweetly, more perfectly, more continuously devoted to her 
father, more affectionate to her father, more mindful of his and of 
his good name than Rebecca was to Isaac, of York. And in Isaac, 
of York, feeble and af eared, there was the courage of the father for 
his daughter. Let Front de Beauf do as might seem best to him; 
the heated iron and the heated oil and the cauldron and the fires 
were there and willing tools to his bidding on the Jew, defenseless 
against the gyves and the rack and, in those days, practically with- 
out recourse to the law of the land for redress. His daughter was 
first to him in life and in the presence of cruel death. Not his 
daughter and his ducats — ^his daughter only and always. 

Then comes the order of Front de Beauf. Isaac is seized and the 
torture is about to be inflicted on him when there comes the sound 
of a bugle and as Scott tells it: ''Unwilling to be found engaged in 
his hellish occupation, the savage baron gave his slaves a signal to 
restore Isaac's garment and, quitting the dungeon with his attend- 
ants, he left the Jew to thank God for his own deliverance or to 
lament over his daughter's captivity and probable fate as his per- 
sonal or paternal feelings might prove strongest." 



In that sentence concluding the chapter in Ivanhoe where the 
torture is stayed by the sound of the bugle, Scott falls in descriptive 
power as Shakespeare never could and never did fall. Throughout 
the chapter Scott has magnificently used his powers of description 
in the showing of the courage of Isaac, of York, money lender and 
usurer, if you will, in the face of death and willing to go down to 
death rather than give up one silver penny unless his daughter — 

234 



not his miserly ducats — were restored to him in safety. That was 
a courage never depicted in Shylock in whom it never existed as 
Shakespeare so conclusively shows. To what other conclusion 
could the reader come, but to the conclusion that Isaac, of York, 
in safety from the cruelties of Front de Beauf, would bend all his 
energies for the finding and the safety of Rebecca? It is the con- 
clusion forced upon the reader by every word of Scott. It is the 
one conclusion to be reached — yet Scott destroys, or minimizes, 
his powers of description, making them a negligible quantity, in 
the weak suggestion that in safety from captivity, Isaac would do 
that which his personal, or his paternal feelings might prove strong- 
est. Scott had excellently well proven the strongest feeling in the 
breast and the heart of Isaac. Was there in himself a hatred for 
the Jew — not Isaac, alone — but for the Jew as a class, that brought 
about the fall from strength of description to weakness of sug- 
gestion? 



Was Scott a plagiarist? Isaac, of York, is near unto death, at 
the hands of a Gentile. Antonio, of Venice, was near unto death at 
the hands of a Jew. When death faced Isaac he stood courageous 
and firm and none could have stood more courageously. His 
daughter was all in all to him. When Shylock stood in danger of 
death and of loss of his ducats, because of having conspired against 
the life of a Gentile of Venice, he mourned and wept and asked to 
be allowed to go hence, promising even to abandon the Faith of 
Israel and become a Christian— and what a Christian, made one 
by force and threats! The life of Isaac, of York, is spared by the 
sounding of a bugle, coming at the critical time, the most critical 
time of all. He has been threatened; he sees the heated irons 
and the cauldron and the tools of the savage baron willing to begin 
their inhuman work. 

Shylock has been adjudged the pound of flesh; the law awards 
it and the court adjudges it! He sits upon the floor, draws his knife 
from his bosom and whets it upon the sole of his sandals. And there 
comes a bugle note from the lips of that wise young man, that 
Daniel come to judgment, and he is told that if he sheds one drop of 
Christian blood in the cutting of the pound of flesh, which the law 
has awarded him, confiscation of his property and loss of his life 
would follow, and Antonio, as near unto death as Isaac, of York, 
was near, is rescued and Shylock goes hence! There is a staging in 
Ivanhoe close kin to that of the staging in the Merchant of Venice, 
showing that if Scott was not a plagiarist — and I do not charge him 
with being one — he saw the effectiveness of the staging by the Great 

235 



Master of Language and of Rhetoric and profited by it. The one 
staging of blood and cruelty halted by the sound of the bugle in 
the days of the robber barons in England and the other, a staging 
of cruelty and of revenge, halted by the law which gave the pound 
of flesh but halted at the shedding of one drop of Christian blood. 

One of the contrasts between the depiction of the Jew in Ivanhoe 
and in the Merchant of Venice, is in the part the Jews play and the 
part their daughters play and in the contrasts between Rebecca 
and Jessica. In the Merchant of Venice, first called the Jew of 
Venice, Shylock, with Portia, plays the principal part. The Mer- 
chant of Venice is a tragedy of bitterness of the Gentile against the 
Jew; of the Jew against the Gentile ; of the quillets of the law; of 
usury and of absolute disregard of the duty of a daughter to her 
father — not so much in the marriage of the daughter of Shylock 
with a Gentile. It is to be remembered that Rebecca, a daughter 
of Israel, loved Ivanhoe, the son of Cedric, a Gentile. She loved 
him with a mourning womanliness and a constant dignity of de- 
meanor, knowing that Ivanhoe was a Gentile and that while he was 
grateful to her, even unto the risking of his life for her in the lists 
of Templestowe, yet that marriage between her and Ivanhoe was 
an impossibility, not alone because of the difference in Faith and 
nationality, but because Ivanhoe loved Rowena and Rowena re- 
turned his affection. 

Between Jessica and Rebecca comparisons are impossible. 
There is nothing but contrast. Rebecca was ever kindly, dignified 
and charitable in word and act. Jessica was ever frivolous, especially 
in her conversations and her undignified conversations with the fool 
Launcelot Gobbo; Rebecca was ever sincere with her father; 
respectful to him and caring for his comfort and his good name. 
Jessica was ever disrespectful to her father, caring nothing for his 
affection, nor for his comfort as a daughter should have done. 
When Isaac tells her of his going forth to supper, he bids her: 

"Go in, 

Perhaps I will return immediately; 
Do as I bid you; shut doors after you; 
Fast bind, fast find; 
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind." 

Jessica. — 

"Farewell! and if my fortune be not crost, 
I have a father; you, a daughter lost." 

In the instructions to Jessica, there is not one sign nor any 
instance of fatherly affection, that ever was in Isaac, of York, for 
Rebecca. Shylock treated his daughter as one to whom instruc- 
tions were to be given, with money and fast binding and fast finding 

236 



ever predominant. Isaac, of York, treated Rebecca as a blessing 
from Heaven to him especially in his declining years, on whom he 
could not only look with respect, but to whom he could and did give 
the fullness of his heart's love. Whatever may have been the reason, 
it is plain that between Jessica and Shylock there never existed, 
affection or respect; neither consideration nor fihal affection. She 
shows it in her parting words after her father had delivered his 
admonitions and had gone forth: ' 'Farewell! and if my purpose 
be not crost, I have a father, you, a daughter lost." Jessica knew 
not alone that her father, a Jew, would protest against her marriage 
with a Gentile, but she knew that she had determined upon the 
marriage, with the ducats going with her, not regarding the mourn- 
ing of her father, in any degree nor caring for the grief that would 
come to him. Evidently she had no confidence in him. Even 
though Ivanhoe had returned the love of Rebecca, she would not 
have married him because of the grief she knew would come to her 
father. Jessica cared nothing for the good name of her father. 
Rebecca returns the one hundred zecchins to Gurth, for return to 
Ivanhoe, with her father ignorant of the fact, the return being for 
the care of his good name, to the intensity of surprise on the part of 
Gurth who had paid over to Isaac, had fulfilled his mission to Isaac, 
with practically as great financial acumen as any Jew of them all 
might have had. When the final zecchin is counted and the debt 
paid, Isaac, with the spirit of money in him, asks Gurth if he does 
not have more money than the eighty zecchins in his pouch. He 
has — the crude Saxon churl has beaten the Jew at his own game. 
Yet Isaac mourns not. There is no demanding of the pound of 
flesh in him and Rebecca follows Gurth and gives to him one hundred 
zecchins — not because of liability for them before the law, but be- 
cause her father owed the good knight deeper kindness than money 
could ever pay — and the Hebrew maiden has far outdistanced the 
Saxon churl in her showing of deep appreciation of the debt her 
father owed to Ivanhoe. There is not the slightest trace of that 
measure of appreciation nor of love for her father in Jessica. She 
marries Lorenzo ; goes upon her wedding trip and scatters the ducats 
of her father in profuse prodigality. Her father is as nothing to 
her as Rebecca's father is everything to her. It is true that Isaac 
bargains and bargains and bargains with Gurth before the eighty 
zecchins are paid— but he is willing to lose the remainder because 
the disinherited knight, Ivanhoe, has done him a favor. 

Shylock was insolent in his knowledge of the wealth he possessed 
and showed his insolence in his taunting speech to Antonio. Isaac 
was gentle in comparison with Shylo ck. Never would he have used 
the language Shylock used to Antonio— not because of his gen- 

237 



tleness, perhaps, nor for want of courage — courage that needed an 
occasion to arouse it as it was aroused when Rebecca was in danger 
and then his own courage and his expression of it soared to the 
highest for it was based on fatherly love for an affectionate and a 
most noble daughter. 

Isaac lends money to the disinherited knight without security. 
The disinherited knight at the castle of Cedric had aroused Isaac, 
telling him of the presence of de Bois Guilbert in the castle and of 
the instructions the baron had given his Saracene followers. Isaac 
aroused, grasps his luggage, insisting that in it was nothing but a 
change of raiment and follows the disinherited knight — the ''pil- 
grim — to a place of safety. Isaac bears the kindness of the pilgrim 
in his heart. On the journey to safety, under the care of the Pil- 
grim, he shows that better nature so plainly lacking in Shylock. 
He knows what the pilgrim wants. 'Thy wish, even now, is for a 
horse and armor." "What fiend prompted that guess?" is the 
astonished answer of the pilgrim. "It is no matter," said Isaac, 
smiling. "And as I can guess thy want, so I can supply it." 

"But Isaac," said Ivanhoe, "dost thou know that in these sports 
the arms and the steed of the knight who is unhorsed are forfeit to 
his victor? Now I may be unfortunate and so lose what I cannot 
replace or repay." 

And the Jew rises in Isaac. A stranger in a strange land, with 
all hostility to him and to his race on all hands, practically out- 
lawed, he looks astounded for a moment. But there comes back 
his better nature and his gratitude. It is impossible that the brave 
and the kindly youth will lose. "The blessing of our Father will 
be upon thee," he says. ''Thy lance will be as powerful as the rod 
of Moses." If there is a return to appreciation of possible loss, it is 
not the fault of Isaac but of Ivanhoe. The steed may be slain; 
the armor may be injured for he will spare neither in the lists. 
"Besides," Ivanhoe reminds him, "those of thy tribe give nothing 
for nothing; something there must be paid for their use." 

It is of no avail. Shylock would have demanded security from 
Ivanhoe as he did from Antonio and the pressure of the law would 
have been brought to bear on Ivanhoe for the value of the steed 
and the armor as it was brought upon Antonio. But Ivanhoe 's fair 
warning made no permanent impression. "I care not — I care not!" 
said Isaac. "If there is damage it will cost you nothing," and he 
cautions Ivanhoe of the danger of thrusting himself too far forward 
in the lists, possibly because of the danger to steed and armor, but, 
all things considered, far more probably because of the kindness 
Ivanhoe had done him in warning him to leave the castle of Cedric 
and protecting him on the journey. He gives Ivanhoe the order 
on Kirjath Jairam and pays his debt of gratitude. 

238 



Is there anything in the character of Shylock that would give 
evidence of the smallest portion of the milk of human kindness in 
his breast? It was not intended by Shakespeare that it should be 
so. He was portraying a Jew at once cruel and unkind; sharing 
the affection he held for his daughter with his ducats and especially 
with the ducats his daughter had stolen from him. 

In the Merchant of Venice the Jew is portrayed as without one 
ennobling quality. It is even shown that, unlike the Jew as a rule, 
Shylock was somewhat lacking in affection for his child. In 
Ivanhoe, with an avoidance of the portrayal of Shakespeare, the 
Jew is depicted by Scott as one in love for money, inherent and con- 
tinuous, but with equally inherent qualities of gratitude and appre- 
ciation of kindness shown. In the Merchant of Venice the Jew is 
dominant in the part he plays, with Portia sharing the honors with 
him. In Ivanhoe, the Jew plays a secondary part, with Rebecca^ 
his daughter and Ivanhoe, the central figures. 

Shylock went to the front on the Rialto and everywhere in 
Venice in the days before the signing of the bond by Antonio and 
the coming of the caution not to spill one drop of Christian blood. 
In Ivanhoe, the Jew seeks absence from the crowds and when Prince 
John bids the crowds make way for him, it is with a feeling that he 
was in all things out of place, that Isaac takes his seat among the 
Gentile nobles. 

There comes to Isaac, as seated with Rebecca, another showing 
of the mixed qualities he had within him, with Shylock having but 
one — revenge for injuries, real or fancied. 

'Tather Abraham," he exclaims. ''How fiercely that Gentile 
rides! Ah, the good horse that was brought all the way from Barbary, 
he takes no more care of him than if he were a wild asses colt! And 
the noble armor that was worth so many zecchins to Joseph Paredro, 
of Milan, besides seventy in the hundred of profits, he cares as little 
for it as if he had found it in the highways." 

''If he risks his own life and limbs, father," said Rebecca, "in 
doing such a dreadful battle, he can scarce be expected to spare 
horse and armor." "Child," says Isaac, "thou knowest not what 
thou speakest — Holy Jacob! What was I about to say?" And he 
turns from thinking of possible loss to the hope that Rebecca will 
pray for the victory of the knight; for "he is a good youth," and 
the good youth conquers! There is not one depiction in the Merchant 
of Venice of the confidence and the mutual love existing between 
Isaac and Rebecca — not one! 

Rebecca was dutiful. Jessica was forgetful of her duty, ever. 
Rebecca was ever truthful to her father. Jessica is portrayal of 
falseness to her father. Isaac invited confidence and affection, 

239 



;Shylock repelled it. Lorenzo calls on Jessica from the street and 
she throws him a casket from the window. ''Here, catch this casket. 
It is worth the pains/' and she deserts her father. 

Shylock is ever talking of the Jew, though by no means living 
up to his Faith. Isaac speaks of the Jew in mourning accents and 
holds fast to the Faith at all times and under all circumstances. 
Shylock is not only prosecutor of Antonio but assumes to give 
commands to the jailer as to the treatment to be accorded him before 
his trial had been held. 

Shylock : 

''Gaoler, look to him! tell me not of mercy; 
This is the fool that lent out money gratis. 
Gaoler, look to him!" 

Antonio : 

"Hear me yet, good Shylock " 

Shylock : 

"I'll have my bond! speak not against my bond; 
I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond; 
Thou call'st me dog before thou hads't a cause; 
But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs. 
The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder, 
Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond 
To come abroad with him at his request! 

Antonio : 

"I pray thee, hear me speak!" 

Shylock : 

"I'll have my bond. I will not hear more! 
I'll have my bond!" 

Cruelty, cruelty and more cruelty — with his cruelty bringing 
judgment on his head. It was not the Duke that did him justice, 
but the wise young man, the Daniel come to judgment — and in 
his condemnation of the gaoler, for bringing Antonio to the sight 
of the skies for a brief hour, Shylock showed the Jew, as Shakes- 
peare wished to depict him, and did depict him, even more strongly 
than when he depicted the Jew at the bar of the court of the Duke 
demanding his bond. 

Shakespeare was depicting the Jew as a Jew, as a class. Scott 
was depicting Isaac, of York. Scott depicted Rebecca perfectly 
as a woman of the Hebrew race and of the Faith of the Jew. Shakes- 
peare evidently regarded Jessica as a mere filler in — a character of 
small consequence and marred by her as the entire tragedy is marred 
by the introduction of the incident of the three chests; by the 
frivolousness of Launcelot Gobbo and by others of the cast better 

240 



omitted. We mourn for Rebecca, as we mourn for Ophelia. We 
have no regrets for Jessica nor can we have for him who mourned 
his daughter on an equal plane with his ducats. ''My daughter, 0, 
my daughter! My ducats and my daughter!'' is a showing that 
Shakespeare was depicting the Jew as a class, or as a race. His 
depiction is admirable. So is the depiction of Isaac, of York, ad- 
mirable, with that one fall in the suggestion of Scott that, once free, 
the action of Isaac would be determined by his personal or his- 
paternal feelings. Shylock had feelings for his daughter, but his 
feelings were tainted with the money lust. Isaac's feeling for his. 
feeling for his daughter were above and beyond all things human. 



241 



MACBETH'S SOLILOQUIES. 



NE of the class has asked the bearing of the two 
sohloquies of MacBeth — one shortly after his wife 
has subdued him to her will and the other imme- 
diately before the murder of Duncan — on the 
question of his sanity, or his weakness and in- 
formity of purpose. The first soliloquy shows the 
hesitation of MacBeth in the strongest possible 
light. It shows his weakness of character; his wish that the deed 
could be avoided by him; his complete subserviency to the domi- 
nant will and bloody purposes, aims and intents of his wife; his 
appreciation of his cowardice and the consummate treachery towards 
Duncan; his appreciation of the fact of punishment certain for 
wrong doing; full appreciation of the fact that he was contemplating 
the very opposite of that which a manly man would do — and likewise 
appreciation of the commands of his wife and the impossibility of 
escape from them. 

It is in the concluding words of the first soliloquy, undoubtedly, 
that commentators and critics find their proof of the statement that 
MacBeth was wickedly ambitious. It is true, some times, that in 
the very fewest words possible there is a wonderful depth of thought 
concealed — or half concealed. That fact is shown in the undoubtedly 
quietly put question of Lady MacBeth: ''And when goes hence?" 
MacBeth did not appreciate its fulness at the time it was put to 
him. She did — and in its quiet form and few words there was a 
desire to ascertain whether MacBeth was one with her in her de- 
termination to accomplish the murder of their guest and King. 
She saw that he did not grasp the full meaning of the question and 
gives full vent to her determination in the brief sentence: "01 
Never shall sun that morrow see," and bids him leave all the rest to 
her. 

Duncan has arrived and welcome is extended to him by his 
''lovely hostess," as he terms Lady MacBeth, who tells him that all 
their service in every point twice done, and then done double, were 
poor and single business to contend against those honors with which 
Duncan had loaded their house. With the closing of the scene there 
enters MacBeth upon the stage with his first soliloquy. Before 
quoting it, the last lines will be of interest to those who hold MacBeth 
to have been "wickedly ambitious." But caution is given to them 
to remember that right interpretation requires consideration of the 
entire utterance of the unwilling man whose wife boasted that her 

243 




1 



hands were as bloodily stained as his, but that she would be ashamed \ 
to have a heart so white — that is so pitifully weak and cowardly 

and so white with fear. The soliloquy thus concludes: ' 

"I have no spur, 

To prick the sides of my intent, but only " 1 

Vaulting ambition, which o'er leaps itself ; 

And falls on the other." ! 

- ■ • i 

He admits he had ambition — ^but it was of the vaulting kind and \ 

make; an ambition which o'er leaps itself and in the words: \ 

have no spur to prick the sides of my intent" save vaulting ambition, ; 

inevitably bringing ruin to the vaulter, he shows that his ambition < 

was not of his own suggestion nor growth. The entire soliloquy i 

bears out the contention that if it had not been for the cruel, the 1 

wicked, the selfish and the dominating characteristics of his wife — \ 

stopping at no means to accomplish her ends and aims — MacBeth \ 

would have remained the honored and the loved kinsman of Duncan, ; 
serving his country and his King and waiting with bloodless hands . j 

and clear conscience the fulfilment of the prophecy of the witches | 

by natural and thoroughly lawful means alone, if it were to be | 

brought about. ' 

Let us read the soliloquy. We will pity MacBeth; he knows he : 

must do the murder and his soul revolts from it. He knows Lady j 

MacBeth is waiting knowledge of the death of Duncan — ^all the rest ! 
is to be left to her by her own commands. 

I 

MacBeth.— ' 

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well, I 

It were done quickly; if the assassination, I 

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch ■ 
With his surcease, success; that but this blow 
Might be the be-all and the end-all here. 

But here, upon the bank and shoal of time, | 

We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases, j 

We still have judgment here; that we but teach j 

Bloody instructions which, being taught, return ; 
To plague the inventor; this even handed justice 

Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice, i 

To our own lips. He's here in double trust; , 

First, I am his kinsman and his subject, < 

Strong both against the deed; then as his host, ; 

Who should against his murderer shut the door, | 

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan ! 

Hath borne his faculties so meek; hath been , 

So clear in his great office, that his virtues, ' 

Will plead, like angels, trumpet tongued, against ; 

The deep damnation of his taking off; j 

And pity, like a new born babe, ; 

Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim horsed, ' 

244 : 



Upon the sightless currents of the air, 

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur 

To prick the sides of my intent, but only 

Vaulting ambition which o'er leaps itself 

And falls on the other." 

There can be nothing found in that concluding sentence, when 
considered with the entire soliloquy that would rightly lead us to the 
belief that Shakespeare intended to convey to his readers the im- 
pression that MacBeth was wickedly ambitious. He was ambitious 
because his wife so commanded. She knew him and his better and 
his baser qualities. He was one of that class of men with convic- 
tions of right and willingness to follow them, but for lack of powers 
of persuasion to others who sought to lead them to wrong doing; 
to the class of men given to human respect, instead of holding fast 
to self respect; to that class which holds opinions but fears, because 
of human respect, to express them in the face of a tempter or a man 
of convictions with courage of expression. 

His character is excellently described by his wife in her pitiful 
sarcasm. "My hands are as bloody as yours are, my husband! 
Just as bloody — but, you, poor, vacillating, cowardly thing! You're 
not a man, and I'd hate to have a heart so white, so pitiful, so cow- 
ardly as yours and so blind to the fact that a crown would become 
you greatly." 

Think over his description of himself in his appreciation of the 
obligations of the highest force imposed upon him. He rightly 
calls the deed his wife has urged and commanded him to do, an 
"assassination;" even-handed justice will, in due time, present the 
poisoned ingredients of the chalice to his lips — and to her's; he 
realizes fully that it is not for him to murder Duncan, his King, his 
friend, his benefactor and his guest, but to close the doors against 
the would-be murderer of this kinsman and guest who had borne 
his high honors so meekly; who had been so clear in his great office; 
who was in the castle in double trust and his virtues would plead 
against what? Against the ''deep damnation" of his murder. 

The tempter — Lady MacBeth — enters and is asked: ''Hath he 
asked for me?" and she answers: "Know you not that he hath?" 

MacBeth immediately tells her that they will proceed no further 
in the business. 

"He hath honored me of late; and I have bought 
Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss 
Not cast aside so soon." 

There is an excellent bit of the descriptive in that. There is the 
emphatic showing of the human respect in MacBeth who had won 

245 



* 'Golden opinions from all sorts of peoples" and he clings to that as 
an argument against the murder — so different from his soliloquy! 
When his wife is present he is another man. Alone, he describes 
the shocking, the unnatural features of the assassination and the 
admirable qualities of Duncan — qualities not dependent on the 
opinions of all sorts of peoples, but qualities dependent on his heroic 
actions; the noble manner in which he had borne his high honors;: 
the clearness and the purity of his official life. But when his wife 
comes, he falls. Then he appeals to her to think of the honors he 
himself has won; of the high opinions he has won from the rabble. 
He knows, beyond doubt, that his appeal will be futile — but his 
weak nature urges him to the effort. She had no self-respect — but 
she cared nothing for the plaudits of the crowd nor for the recent 
honors Duncan had conferred upon him. Her aim and object were 
comprised in the determination that MacBeth should become the 
dispenser of the honors of the crown, attained at the cost — slight to 
her — of atrocious murder and violation of all principles of honor, of 
gratidude and of hospitality. 

With the deep genius she possessed; with her deep insight into 
the character of her husband she changes her note of command to 
the element of persuasion — sarcastic persuasion, possibly, but per- 
suasion none the less. She asks: 

"Was the hope drunk, 
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? 
And wakes it now to look so pale and green, 
At what it did so freely? From this time 
Such I account thy love! Art thou afeared 
To be the same in thine own act and valor 
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that 
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of thy life 
And live a coward in thine own esteem, 
Letting: 'I dare not' wait upon I would, 
Like the poor cat i' the adage?" 

How she has changed from dire commands to dire persuasion! 
A magnificent illustration of the powers of Shakespeare and of the 
powers of rhetorical expression! 

'Trithee, peace," he moans. ''I dare do all that may become a 
man; who dares do more is none." 

But she is not to be defeated in her wicked ambition — not the 
wicked ambition of her husband. Again her powers of persuasion 
come into play. And great they are, with him on whom they were 
to be poured not noting the change in her method from command to 
persuasion. 



246 



Lady MacBeth.— 

"What beast was't then, 
That made you break this enterprise to me? 
When you durst do it, then you were a man! 
And to be more than what you were, you would 
Be so much more the man! Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both; 
They must have made themselves, and that their fitness now 
Does unmake you! I have given suck and know 
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me, 
I would, while it was smiling in my face, 
Have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums 
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you 
Have done to this!" 

cruel, selfish, murderous, persuasive woman! Her husband 
has shrunk at all times from the commission of the bloody murder! 
He is asked: **What beast was't made you break this enterprise 
to me?'' Had he broken the project of the enterprise to her? He 
had told her of the witches prophecy; he had told her as a husband 
would tell his wife of possible preferment and advances — but he had 
projected no enterprise to her. She had asked him when Duncan 
would come and when go hence. 'Tomorrow, as he purposes," is 
the answer of her husband and she goes from his presence with the 
command, embodying all elements in her few words: ''Leave all 
the rest to me." With the details of that which she herself proposed 
and projected, he was not to concern himself. He, on the absolute 
and incontrovertible contrary, ever communed with himself; ever 
felt an abhorrence of her later projections. He tells her he will pro- 
ceed no further in this matter; that that which might become a 
man he would dare and do, and that he who dared do more was no 
man! And she sees her bloody program in the balance; the crown 
of Scotland vanishing and she appreciates that it will no longer do 
for her to use powers of description. No longer will it be of avail to 
use comparisons of bloody hands, as an example, as she did after the 
murder had been committed. It would be of no avail to call him 
coward, as she did later. 

So she resorts to her great powers of persuasion and uses them in 
a manner extorting admiration for effectiveness, with condemnation 
ever for her and her intents. Cruel, cunning, deep thinking woman 
that she was, imbued with knowledge of human nature, especially 
with that of her unwicked husband — unwicked in intents but willing 
to be used as her tool, yet dreading the consequences here and here- 
after to himself and her — she brazenly places the blame of the entire 
project on him! It is possible there was within her something of a 
belief or feeling that, possibly, MacBeth was protesting against 



247 



being made to play the secondary part — not that he wanted to be 
the first and foremost in the murder, but simply because the first 
part was his in all matters of public moment. In any event she 
uses her great powers of persuasion instigated by her great powers of 
mind and absolute lack of womanly qualities. He shows the effect 
of her persuasive powers in his first answer in the interrogative form: 
"If we should fail?" 

Lady MacBeth. — ''We fail?" It was not her alone, afterwards. 
It was ''We," now! 

"We fail! Why that is an assumption ridiculous! All that re- 
mains now for you to do, is to screw your courage to the sticking 
point and we'll not fail!" Again the partnership in the crime. And 
again she lets him know — quietly and persuasively but not command- 
ingly — that when Duncan is asleep, she will feed his chamberlains 
with wine and wassail to an extent that: "Memory shall be a fume." 
When their swinish natures are asleep, she asks "Why can not you 
and I," not MacBeth alone, "perform upon the unguarded Dun- 
can?" and why not put upon his spongy officers the guilt of their 
great quell? 

Verily has she not only attended to all the details— all the rest 
which was to be left to her — but she had attended to her own men- 
tality in the showing to herself that if she wanted accomphshment 
she must not only lay the blame of the entire project upon her easily 
fooled husband, but that she must make a partnership between them 
in which each would bear an equal part, with MacBeth doing the 
murder and she fastening the guilt upon the grooms, or chamber- 
lains. She must persuade MacBeth that he, alone, was the projector 
of the bloody tragedy — and fastens the projection on him, with 
smiles, no doubt, over the ease with which, because of her change in 
methods she had, at last, captured him. The holding him fast, 
after that, was a task of ease. 

Her powers of argumentation, or persuasion, have won him over. 
The rest will be of easy accomplishment. That there may be no 
halting on the part of her husband, she abides with him and at the 
closing of the scene, with her face all smiling and, her manner affec- 
tionate — hypocritically so — and confiding, MacBeth says in answer 
to her telling of how their griefs and their clamor shall roar, when the 
deed is discovered: 

"I am settled and bent up 
In each corporal agent to this terrible feat! 
Away and mock the time with fairest show, - 
False face must hide what the false heart must know." 



248 



It is his feeble and his last protest. He is bent up to the terrible 
feat in his corporal powers — an intimation that his mental, or his 
spiritual powers still protested. But it was too late. She had im- 
pressed him that he it was who had broached the dreadful project; 
and she had reminded him of his oath — nowhere recorded — to do the 
deed of murder on Duncan, as she would have done it in the little 
babe at her breast if she had sworn to do it as she charges he had 
sworn to do this deed! Unwomanly woman! Cruel, selfish, madly- 
ambitious woman! Caring nothing for the means so that the ends 
were attained. Unchristian woman! Others may have lived like 
unto her — but few, indeed, and far between. But no woman, with 
her great powers of mind and her complete absence of powers of 
heart has been so completely described as Shakespeare has described 
Lady MacBeth! May there never be her like again! But she is a 
lesson and an illustration. All powers of rhetoric were in her. 
More than that, her great insight into human nature moved and in- 
spired her to right uses of them — ^rhetorical uses, of course, only — 
and when bitter sarcasm failed her powers of persuasion are shown 
magnificently. There is one return to bitterness and a showing of 
contempt — but only one, when she says in answer to his halting 
question: ''Screw your courage to the sticking point, and we'll not 
fail. You have courage, MacBeth, and I have you fast within my 
coils. I know you can not escape the dreadful task I have set before 
you — and you, likewise, know that I have won you over and that 
Duncan will be slain in the house of his kinsman and his host — the 
sleep of Duncan, adding to the cowardice of the deed. You have 
courage and have shown it on the battle field — all that remains now 
is for you to screw it to the sticking point, and there will be no failure 
in my determination to place the crown of Scotland on your brows, 
that I may reign as Queen!'*' 

The deed is done. ''I have done the deed," he says as he comes 
back all trembling, all cowardly, all remorseful, as she grasps the 
dagger from his bloody hand and goes to smear the faces of the 
grooms — all of which has been discussed in the lecture of last Friday. 
And we come to the vision of the dagger. 

MacBeth.— 

"Go bid thy mistress when my drink is ready 
She struck upon the bell. Get thee to bed." (Exit servant.) 

MacBeth.— 

"Is this a dagger which I see before me 
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! 
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but 

249 



A dagger of the mind, a false creation 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 
I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
As this which now I draw. 

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; 

And such an instrument I was to see. 

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses. 

Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still 

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood 

Which was not so before! There is no such thing! 

It is the bloody business which informs 

Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one-half world 

Nature seems dead and wicked dreams abuse 

The curtained sleep; witchcraft celebrates 

Pale Hecates offering. And withered murder, 

Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf. 

Whose howls his watch, thus with his stealthy pace 

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design, 

Moves like a ghost! Thou sure and firm set earth 

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear 

The very stones prate of my whereabout! 

And take the present horror from the time 

Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives; ■ 

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives! (A bell rings) 

I go and it is done; the bell invites me. 

Hear it not Duncan; for it is a knell 

That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell." 

Even in that soliloquy there is the tone of vacillation. He 
has been won over — not a doubt of it. Yet he begs the sure and firm 
set earth to be deaf to his footsteps for the very stones might prate 
of his whereabout, and that the present horror be taken from the 
time which now sets with it. He notes that while he is threatening, 
Duncan is living — and the bell rings. The servant was bidden to 
go to his mistress and tell her when his drink was ready to strike 
upon the bell. She had been attending, doubtless, to ''all the rest" 
which she had demanded should be left to her, and the bell she rung 
was not the bell telling of the readiness of his drink, but the signal 
for the assassination. 

"Hear it not Duncan — for it is a knell, 
Which summons thee to Heaven or to Hell!" 

Great she was in all the qualities of a murderous man; great in 
her powers of persuasion which brought MacBeth at last, to the 
shocking crime she had planned and he had carried into execution 
at her behests that she might wear the queenly crown of Scotland, 
and continue to rule not alone over the nation, but over him on whose 
brow the blood-stained crown of Duncan would be placed by her! 



250 



Then see him as he comes from the kilHng of his guest, his bene- 
factor and his King! 

His wife is awaiting him. The drink that had stupefied the senses 
of the grooms had made her bold! That which had quenched them, 
had given her fire — ^the courage and the nerve strengthening of 
drink! She hears the shriek of the owl. "He is about it," she ex- 
claims, and continues: 

"The doors are open and the surfeited grooms 
Do mock their charge with snores! I have drugged their possets, 
That death and nature do contend about them, 
Whether they hve or die!" 

While the bloody tragedy is being enacted, the heart of Lady 
MacBeth feels no horror over it. Not one pang of conscience; not 
one tinge of remorse; not one prayer for Duncan, as MacBeth felt 
and expressed in his quivering moments before she had so effectively 
persuaded him. She hears MacBeth crying: ''Who's there? What, 
ho!" and she fears the grooms have wakened and that the deed is 
not done. It is not the deed that will confound them, she says. 
It is the attempt and not the deed and for the moment, doubtless, 
came a vision of the passing of the crown from them, through the 
inactivity of her husband. But he comes in. ''I have done the 
deed," he says quiveringly. Conversation follows of slight moment 
when MacBeth, looking at his bloody hands, says: 
"This is a sorry sight." 

Her answer is characteristic: ''A foolish thought, to say a sorry 
sight." MacBeth tells her of the laughing of one of the grooms 
in his sleep and how one cried murder. One cried, ''God bless us," 
and the other said "Amen," but MacBeth admits that he could not 
say "Amen" when the groom cried out, "God bless us." Is there 
one question of Lady MacBeth with reference to Duncan, their 
murdered King, kinsman and guest? Not one! She only tells 
MacBeth not to consider it so deeply! 

And he, poor, weak and quivering soul, continues with his plead- 
ing, for he knows the atrocity of his deed. "But wherefore," he 
asks. "Wherefore could I not pronounce "Amen?" I had most 
need of blessing and "Amen" stuck in my throat. 

Is there pity for him in the heart of Lady MacBeth? Not in 
the smallest degree. She warns him that: 

"These deeds must not be thought, 
After these ways; so it will make us mad." 

Notwithstanding which, MacBeth has some remnants of con- 
science. She has not. When he continues in his whining ways and 
questions, brought about by his doing of the deed she had planned 

251 



and made him do, she breaks out again in her true form and spirit, 
bidding him go and get some water and wash the blood from his 
hands. Then follows the scene wherein she goes to smear the hands 
and faces of the grooms with the blood of the King. During her 
absence he continues his wails— not all the water in great Neptune's 
ocean could wash the stain from his hands. She comes back and 
delivers herself of the withering reproach : 

"My hands are of your color; but I shame 
To wear a heart so white." 

While he, panic stricken and conscience stricken, admits that to 
''know his deed, 'twere best not to know himself." The knocking 
comes and he prays that the newcomer at the gate could wake 
Duncan if he could: ''I would thou could'st!" 

There may be something of repetition in this lecture — ^repetitions 
of quotations. But they are necessary to the showing that through- 
out MacBeth all elements of rhetoric combine to the one great end 
Shakespeare had in view. The repetitions from last Friday's lecture 
are necessary to the answer to the question of the bearing of the two 
soliloquies of MacBeth on the question of the sanity, or the merely 
vacillating and weakening qualities in his make-up — an unmanly 
make-up, indeed, as her's was most unwomanly. 



252 



THE TRAGEDY OF TREACHERY. 



HE madness of Hamlet may be dismissed from con- 
sideration for the present. He had within him 
all the qualities that went to make up manhood 
and qualities that retarded manhood. Versatility 
was dominant in him. Before the staging of his 
play, not alone to ''catch the conscience of the 
King/' but to wring from him an involuntary con- 
fession of guilt, his versatility is magnificently illustrated by the 
assumedly dignified salutation to Ophelia: 

"Soft you now! 
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons, 
Be all my sins remembered." 

That was the conclusion of his famed soliloquy in which he had 
murmured against the canon forbidding self-destruction; in which 
he had looked upon the question of Death and the aftermath with 
dreamy eloquence and something of cowardice — from the human 
viewpoint. He could have ended all by the use of a bare bodkin — 
but to die and to sleep, when there would be no awakening from that 
sleep, there was the rub! That dread of something after Death 
was the thing that puzzled his will and drove it to ''bearing the ills 
we had, rather than to fly to those we knew not of." And he con- 
cludes that it is conscience that makes cowards of us all; and the 
native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought 
and enterprises of great pith and moment turned awry their currents 
and lost the name of action. 

It was a wonderful soliloquy! Hamlet knew he was speaking 
of himself ; he stood in dread of the possible tragedy facing him and 
from which he saw no means of escape. Delays there might be to 
aid him in his career of vacillation and it was not conscience that 
made a coward of him. He had sicklied over the native hue of his 
resolution with the pale cast of thought, unrelieved by action. The 
enterprise of great pith and moment, committed to him by the 
Ghost of his father was not only losing the name of action, but 
losing action itself. There could have been nothing added to his 
soliloquy. A more complete, a more perfect, or a more illustrative 
picture of a hesitator, as contrasted with the man of action could 
not have been given. Shakespeare rose to the highest of his summits 

253 




in it. Horatio was not with him, nor any one of his companions. 
The staging of the play had not been brought about. He sought 
neither the court, nor the courtiers and to him the King was an 
abhorrence. How should the scene be brought to an ending, or to a 
climax? There was never deficiency in Shakespeare. The average 
writer would have ended the soliloquy with Hamlet going out and 
doing something. Shakespeare ends it with the coming of fair and 
most unfortunate Ophelia, loving Hamlet, not knowing him, but 
devoted to him. And Hamlet? Certainly we can not extend ad- 
miration to him in his vision of Opheha coming to his presence. 
He sees her and, at once, all his soliloquizing, all his moonings, all 
his dread of the future life ; all his philosophizing and his discussions 
pass away. ''Soft you, now! The fair Ophelia,'' is his aside remark 
and his greeting to her is not one that appeals to the better element. 
He knew Ophelia held him in strong affection, as her brother, Laertes, 
mistrusted him and Hamlet knew the mistrust was deserved by him. 
Was he respectful? Was he even fairly courteous in his salutation 
as he turned to her. 

"Nymph! In thy orisons, 
Be all my sins remembered." 

We can not respect Hamlet for his salutation. It was bitter; 
it was in the highest degree sarcastic. It was a fall from the con- 
sideration of things of lofty heights to a plane on which no manly 
man would stand. Ophelia loved him — and Hamlet knew it. Yet 
all that he desires now, is remembrance in her prayers. 

But it was Hamlet, and Shakespeare was describing him through 
himself and we can find palliation for his greeting only on the ground 
that it was but a fall for a moment. It shows the extreme versatility 
of the man. It is not to be believed that Hamlet intended by it to 
show the slightest shred of contempt for the fair Ophelia, deserving 
of his highest respect and receiving the highest from all, together 
with their sincerest sympathies, in her unhappy life. 

We grow indignant over his address to her who had come to 
proffer back the presents he had made her, as he loved her and as 
she knew it. There is no diminution of affection on the part of 
either, but Laertes, her brother, had cautioned her against Hamlet 
and she had heeded the advice but had not given over her affection. 
Nor had Hamlet given over his affection for her. But he had a duty 
to perform, and hugged the delusion to his breast that he would 
accomplish it some time in the future. He showed that his affection 
had not dimmed in his telling her that he had never given her aught. 



254 



and tells her that once he did love her. She begs him to take back 
the presents : 

"Take these again; for, to the noble mind, 
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind." 

And his ravings continue. He tells her he is proud, vengeful, 
and ambitious and that he has more offences at his beck and call than 
time in which to give them shape or time to act them in. He sees 
Ophelia before him, but he sees that which he believes to be his duty 
and that he must do it. But when? And he plainly shows the in- 
sincerity of his ravings and his protestations that he no longer loves 
Ophelia when he tells her that there will be no more marriages; 
those who are married, already, all but one, shall live. That is to 
say the poor, indecisive Hamlet is determined on the killing of his 
uncle, and shows his weaker character in his ravings to her whom he 
loved dearly but to whom he uses words better characterizing one 
from the Moors on the seas, than one to whom Denmark had the right 
to look for courtesy and the demeanor of a gentleman. Ophelia 
knew his better qualities and, with womanly affection, grieves not 
over the rudeness of his tongue, but mourns : 

"0, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! 
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, ear and sword! 
The expectancy and rose of the fair State! 
The glass of fashion and the mould of form— 
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down! 
And I, of women most deject and wretched, 
That sucked the honey of his music vows, 
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, 
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; 
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth, 
Blasted with ecstacy! O, woe is me! 
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!" 

Making all due allowances for exaggerated praise of Hamlet by 
Ophelia, there is little doubt that her description of him was prac- 
tically true. But he was playing a part, few men could play and 
which a man of action would not have played. He was playing a 
tragedy of thought and determination, with postponements ever 
thwarting that which he had courage to do if, as Lady MacBeth 
advised her vacillating husband: ''But screw your courage to the 
sticking point and we'll not fail.'' Others of the great characters of 
Shakespeare are burdened greatly with duty to be done, as they 
viewed duty, but in not one of the tragedies of Shakespeare is there 
one more gifted than Hamlet was; so thoroughly right in his indig- 
nation over the marriage of his mother to the one who had killed her 

255 



husband and his father; so urged as he was by the Ghost of his 
father to vengeance as Hamlet was urged. His was, indeed, a strange 
compound of the manly qualities, and the qualities which rank men 
am.ong those whom their fellows rightly despise. Ophelia believes 
him insane. Horatio alone of all his friends knows the innermost 
secrets of the heart of the unhappy and unbalanced Hamlet. His 
mother feels that her son has deep and unrootable belief in the fact 
that her husband is a murderer and that she, through her marriage, 
is party to the crime. In the meantime the King himself, watching 
every act of Hamlet coming within his vision, is impressed with the 
fact that the melancholy, the abberations, and the sometimes ravings 
of Hamlet are but shallow disguises and he plans his release from all 
danger. Hamlet is to be pitied throughout and, at times, that pity 
must be mingled with respect. His was a melancholy career from 
the beginning of his manhood. Even Ophelia deserts him. Sen- 
sitive as Ophelia was, there was in her very much that was heroic. 
Sensitive as Hamlet was melancholy, she gives way at the last and, 
unlike Hamlet, gives no thought to that bourn from which no traveler 
returns, but gives up her life in despair and in an agony of spirit men 
can not comprehend. 

Hamlet was in marked contrast to all the characters of the 
tragedy. He would betray no one as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 
were willing to betray him. That he opened the letter in their 
possession when they were with him on their way to England with 
instructions from the King to his subjects in England to rid him of 
Hamlet through death ; that he changed the tenor and the commands 
of the letter, escaped from the vessel, came back to Denmark, and 
left his two conductors to their fate when they should touch the 
shores of England, is not to be considered against him. They were 
taking him to his death at the commands of the murderer of his father 
and the destroyer of his happiness, and he had the right to do that 
which he did do. He was innocent of any crime. So were his 
conductors innocent of any overt act. But they were parties to the 
plot, or the commands of the King to see to it that Hamlet was 
murdered and that which they were willing to accomplish against 
him, they brought upon their own heads. 

The manner, however, in which Hamlet accomplished his scheme 
showed one of the lesser qualities of man. There was cunning in it, 
and it is urged against him by some critics. True it is he might have 
stolen a boat and rowed to the distant shores; he might have incited 
a mutiny. Many things he might have done had he time and op- 
portunity^ — but they were not. The act is in contrast to the determi- 
nation with which Hamlet roused himself to the fight with Laertes. 
When Laertes hears of the death of his father, he is quick to act. 

256 



He wastes no time in thinking. In the end, however, he allows him- 
self to become party to the treachery plotted against Hamlet by the 
King and, receiving his death blow cries out in agony that he is 
justly punished for his treachery — and dies. 

It is a tragedy of treachery, of wrong doing, of murder, of 
usurpation of kingly power and prerogatives. It is a tragedy of 
weakness, of love overthrown, of homes wrecked, of friendships 
broken, and a tragedy of blood and dishonor throughout. It is a 
tragedy of force and strength on the part of Hamlet at the last 
moment when he stabs and kills the King who had murdered his 
father. A tragedy, indeed, in that regard. The perfection of 
Shakespeare in the mastery of effective action as well as of effective 
language, is magnificently shown in the fact that while Hamlet took 
the life of the King who had married his mother, his mother's death 
was not accomplished at his hands. 

Had Shakespeare allowed the death of his mother to be brought 
about at the hands of her son, the character of Hamlet would have 
been stained forever. With all his weakness, with all his vacillation, 
there is one strain dominant in the King, dominant in Laertes when 
aroused by the King, dominant in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, 
but not one taint of treachery appears in Hamlet at any time nor 
under any circumstances. It is a tragedy in all its details and 
characters, showing that men reap that which they sow. That 
which brought about the death of the Queen, came through her own 
hands unconsciously, perhaps, to her. If she were not a party to 
the murder of Hamlet's father, her husband, at least she profited by it 
in retention of royal power. There was treachery of a less degree in 
Polonius when he hid behind the arras, that he might listen to the 
conversation between Hamlet and his mother that he might report 
it to the King. And he met his death, stabbed by Hamlet as though 
he were a rat. There was treachery, strange to say, developed in 
Laertes and not warranted by his enmity of Hamlet. The perfection 
of description, with dire results, is exhibited only as Shakespeare 
could exhibit it, is in the fact that the Queen herself, takes up the 
poisoned cup intended for Hamlet, her son, and drinks it herself. 

King.— 

"Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine; 
Here's to thy health. Give him the cup!" 

Hamlet. — 

"I'll play this bout first; set it awhile. 
Come! Another hit; what say you?" 

Laertes. — 

"A touch, a touch, I do confess." 



257 



King.— 

"Our son shall win." 

Queen. — 

"He's fat and scant of breath. 
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows. 
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet!" 

Hamlet. — 

"Good madam!" 

King.— 

"Gertrude, do not drink!" 

Queen. — 

"I will, my Lord; I pray you, pardon me." 

King. — (Aside) 

"It is the poisoned cup; it is too late!" 

Hamlet. — 

"I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by." 



As Hamlet calls on Laertes to come again for the third point, 
the Queen falls. Horatio, not noticing the tragedy enacted, asks 
Hamlet how he does, and Hamlet asks ''How does the Queen?'' 
The King, with his guilty conscience, answers that she has swooned 
because she saw them bleeding. But the Queen arouses, speaks 
not to the King but to Hamlet. She knows that she is about to 
reap the final results of her crime. 

Unquestionably, in her dying moments she appreciates deeply 
the fact that the hand of the man who had murdered her husband, 
the father of her son, and whom she had later married depriving 
her son of the possibility of succeeding to the throne of Denmark, 
was the hand of the man who had prepared the poisoned cup for her 
son. The cup which had come to her own lips at the tragic time 
when the death of her son was plotted at the hand of Laertes, with 
the poisoned sword placed in the hands of Laertes coming into the 
hands of Hamlet. 

Therefore she does not answer the King. The time is coming, 
is at hand in fact, when she must render her accounting and she 
cries out: 

"No, no, the drink, the drink — Oh, my dear Hamlet — 
The drink! the drink! I am poisoned." 

And she dies! Then all the manhood in Hamlet is aroused. He 
cries out, uttering the dominant feature of the tragedy. 

258 



Hamlet. — 

"Oh villany! Ho! Let the door be locked; 
Treachery! Seek it out." 

And Laertes, one of the tools of the King, brought down by the 
treachery of the King to treachery himself, knowing himself to be 
dying, makes full confession. 

Laertes. — 

"It is here, Hamlet! Hamlet thou art slain; 
No medicine in the world" can do thee good; 
In thee there is not half an hour of life; 
The treacherous instrument is in thy hands, 
Unbated and envenomed; the foul practice 
Hath turned itself on me; lo, here I lie. 
Never to rise again; thy mother is poisoned; 
I can do no more; the king, the king's to blame!" 

Hamlet. — 

"The point! — envenomed too! 
Then, venom, to thy work!" 

He stabs the King with the poisoned sword which has wrought 
the death of Laertes and is bringing about his own — and all within 
the room cry ''Treason". 

The King, villian that he is, knowing that he must die, but 
standing in the presence of the body of his wife whose death the 
treason of treachery had accomplished, calls on his friends to defend 
him, saying that he is but hurt. And Hamlet, appreciating that if 
the King be only hurt as he says, from his stab, and determined that 
his death shall come immediately, grasps the cup that held the poison 
that killed his mother and exclaims: 

"Here thou infamous, murderous, damned Dane, 
Drink off this portion! Is thy union here? 
Follow my mother." 

The King dies. Laertes tells Hamlet that he was justly served; 
that it was a poison tempered by himself. And as death comes down 
upon him he gives utterance to this manly forgiveness, returning to 
the days of his manhood before he had allowed himself to be led to 
treachery by the King : 

"Exchange forgiveness with me noble Hamlet; 
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee, 
Nor thine on me!" 

Hamlet. — 

"Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee! 
I'm dead, Horatio! Wretched queen, adieu! 
You that look pale and tremble at this chance, 
That are but mutes or audience to this act 
Had I but time — as this fell sergeant. Death 

259 



Is strict in his arrest — Oh, I could tell you — 
But let it be! Horatio, I am dead! 
Thou livest! Report me and my cause aright 
To the unsatisfied."" 

Horatio. — 

"Never believe it! 
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. 
Here's yet some liquor left! 

Hamlet. — 

"As thou art a man 
Give me the cup. Let go! By Heaven I'll have it! 
Oh, good Horatio! What a wounded name, 
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! 
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart 
Absent thee from felicity awhile. 
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain 
To tell my story." 

In his dying moments he hears the sound of trumpets and the 
marching of the troops under Fortinbras. He asks Horatio, ''What 
warhke noise is this?'' Horatio tells him and Hamlet continues: 

Hamlet. — 

"I die, Horatio; 
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit; 
I can not live to hear the news from England ; 
But I do prophesy, the election lights 
On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice; 
So tell him with the occurrents, more and less 
Which have solicited. The rest is silence!" 

Hamlet, the last of all and the most deserving of all, is dead. 
Around him are the bodies of the murderer of his father and of his 
mother who, if she had not been party to that dreadful murder when 
it was plotted and accomplished, became a party to it afterwards 
in her marriage with the usurper of the throne. There was the 
body of his one-time friend, Laertes, treacherously lending himself 
to the King who sought the death of Hamlet, whose very life and 
every act were arraignments of the King and of his mother. 

It is not a tragedy of madness, nor of melancholy. It is not a 
tragedy illustrative of the character of the Danish people. It is 
not a tragedy of love ; nor even yet a tragedy of soliloquy, of philoso- 
phising, nor a tragedy of poetry, nor a tragedy of life, as life was 
lived in England and in Denmark. It was and is a tragedy of treach- 
ery. Talk there has been, lectures and discussions there have been 
of the question of whether Hamlet was mad or only melancholy, 
temporizing or inactive. The question will be raised and the dis- 
cussions will continue while language continues and literature is 

260 



studied — not alone for its rhetorical value but for the lessons it 
teaches. 

In this lecture it has been suggested that Shakespeare himself 
appreciated that the character and mentality of Hamlet would be 
discussed during all time, and that he left the question open, changing 
the name of his tragedy from 'The Revenge of Hamlet" to ''Hamlet, 
Prince of Denmark." 

The suggestion, I still hold, is well founded. Hamlet, himself, 
felt that his life had been lost so far as results were concerned ; that 
his whole career had been a failure. But with all his faults and 
failings, and he knew them well, he also knew himself. In his 
dying moments, he tells Horatio, his old-time friend and intimate, 
that if he had but time he could tell him. But he knew that Horatio 
also knew him. "But let it be," he says: "Horatio, I am dead; 
thou livest; report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied." 
Again, after demanding and holding the poisoned cup from Horatio's 
hands, his mind reverts to his unfruitful career. He mourns the 
things, concerning himself, but which he and Horatio know; the 
things standing unknown and living behind him. And if Horatio 
ever stood within his heart, he beseeches him that he will stand aside 
for a time from felicity and tell the true story of the life to a harsh 
and an unfeeling world. 

Fortinbras and the ambassadors from England enter almost 
coincidentally with the death of Hamlet, all too late to tell him 
that his commandments had been fulfilled in the death of Rosen- 
crantz and Guildenstern. One of the ambassadors asks, "Where 
should we have our thanks?" and Horatio comes to the rescue of 
his friend and tells the ambassador: 

**Not from his mouth, 
Had it the ability of life to thank you! 
He never gave commandment for their death. 
But since, so jump upon this bloody question, 
You from Polack wars, and you from England, 
Are here arrived, give order that these bodies 
High on a stage be placed to the view; 
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world. 
How these things came about; so shall you hear 
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts. 
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; 
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause. 
And in this upshot purposes mistook 
Fall'n on the inventors' heads; all this can I 
Truly deliver." 

Fortinbras asks that haste may be made in telling the story. 
He embraces his fortune with sorrow ; he has some rights of memory 

261 



in the kingdom which now to claim his vantage doth invite him. 
Of that Horatio has also something to tell coming from Hamlet's 
mouth as death approached. But he asks that care of the bodies 
be had, and Fortinbras pays this tribute to Hamlet: 

"Let four captains 
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage; 
For he was likely, had he been put on 
To have proved most royally; and. for his passage, 
The soldiers' music and the rites of war, 
Speak loudly for him; 
Take up the bodies; such a sight as this 
Becomes the field; but here shows much amiss." 



Fortinbras, like Horatio, knew Hamlet. It is evident from his 
expression, that had Hamlet ''been rightly put upon he would have 
behaved most royally.'' Early training may have been lacking; 
something was lacking in Hamlet. But of all the lives that went 
out in that bloody scene, becoming the field of war rather than the 
home of a king at peace, the life of Hamlet alone was unstained by 
moral wrong or by treachery. Foolish, vacillating, inactive, he was 
but honorable, straightforward and true. The tragedy, probably 
the greatest of all that Shakespeare ever wrote, was not for the 
delineation of the character of Hamlet. It was and ever will be a 
tragedy of treachery. 

Critics cannot agree upon the question of the mentality 
of Hamlet, nor upon his aims, his purposes, his methods. It is 
well said by Dr. Hudson that: ''One man considers Hamlet great 
but wicked; another, good but weak; a third that he lacks courage 
and dare not act; a fourth that he has too much intellect for his 
will and so reflects away the time of action; some consider his 
madness half genuine; others, that it is wholly feigned. Yet, 
notwithstanding this diversity of opinions, all agree in thinking 
and speaking of him as an actual person; and while all are impressed 
with the truth of the character, hardly any one is satisfied with 
another's interpretation of it. That there should be such unanimity 
as to his being a man and such diversity as to what sort of man he is, 
appears something rather curious, to say the least." 

It is, indeed, somewhat singular that while critics and students 
largely agree upon the characters in other great tragedies, not alone 
of Shakespeare but of the great writers, philosophers, rhetoricians 
and educators of all nations, that diversity should be so widespread 
as to Hamlet. Shakespeare intended a study of the tragedy. The 
higher and the baser elements of man are portrayed in the tragedy — 
with treachery portrayed as in no other tragedy nor in any other 

262 



drama. But we, and each one of us, are entitled to the formation 
of an individual opinion on the meaning of the tragedy and on the 
characteristics of each and every one of the actors in it — with in- 
terest, always and of course, centering in and about the character 
whose name is borne by the tragedy. 

In it, Shakespeare makes the innocent and the deserving suffer 
with the guilty. None escapes. The royal family of Denmark is 
obliterated and the Danes must have another for their sovereign. 
The kingdom suffers. It can not be but that it was torn and agonized 
by the tragedy at Elsinore. Poor Ophelia suffers direfully. So does 
Hamlet — do not hold for a moment to the view that he was deserving 
of the punishment that fell upon him, as the others were deserving 
of it, and of them all not one so deserving of the punishment that 
came to him after a few brief months of royalty than Claudius, on 
whose head and on whose soul there lies the most dreadful crime of 
all — the wilful murder of his own brother and the usurpation of his 
crown and kingdom. Gertrude, the Queen, was not a party to the 
murder. There is right agreement on that point — but in the gross 
and in the practically indecent haste of her marriage with the brother 
of her husband, the fate that overtook and punished her was, human- 
ly speaking, rhetorically speaking, richly deserved. 

There was her son, Hamlet! But not even her orphaned son, 
nor any thoughts of him could keep her from the glamour of the 
throne, not from that ''divinity that doth hedge about a King", 
and the summit of the tragedy is reached in the fact that from him- 
self alone came the punishment that fell upon Claudius, upon his 
wife, upon Laertes and on the Kingdom. It was his brain that de- 
vised the combat with the poisoned sword between Laertes and 
Hamlet; it was his devilish cunning that had the poisoned cup 
brought to the scene — and Gertrude drank of it and on his own head 
were the deaths of all, from Laertes to himself and to Hamlet, with 
treachery reaping its own reward. Verily is Hamlet the tragedy of 
treachery. Within it are lessons of the deepest import. Study it 
and hold fast to the opinions you form on the study and the thought 
you give it. As Dr. Hudson says, there are no two critics agreeing 
on the main incidents of the tragedy, nor upon the methods by which 
they were developed and by which action was brought about. I 
have not found that the tragedy was treated as the tragedy of 
treachery alone. I take it, however, that that was the intent of Shakes- 
peare. It is my view — it does not follow that it must be your view. 
But one thing may be said of the tragedy, and it is impossible to 
deny successfully that Shakespeare had his object in view when he 
wrote his greatest tragedy of them all. That one thing is that "as a 
man soweth so shall he reap" — and the reaping all the more bitter, but 
all the more deserved, when the sowing is in the fields of treachery. 

263 



SCOTT AND DICKENS. 




HE question: "In comparing Tale of Two Cities 
with Ivanhoe, which gives the clearer impression 
of the time it depicts?" is of rhetorical import- 
ance. It involves not alone the question of 
rhetorical expression but of rhetorical action — 
that is to say the action which harmonizes with 



the expression, with the mentality of the char- 
acters, with their traditions, their Faith or their lack of Faith, with 
their devotion to government rightly administered and with their 
going beyond lawful ways and means and methods of righting 
wrongs. 

As a question of minor importance and as one on which every 
member of the class should form and hold her own opinion, I say 
today that I hold fast to the statement made yesterday, that Dickens 
gives a clearer expression of the facts attendant on the revolution in 
France resulting in the overthrow of government and the substitu- 
tion of anarchy in its stead. Scott in Ivanhoe suggests material for 
a lecture on rhetoric of expression, through language, and rhetoric 
as expressed in action and in personalities. 

Looking over the papers submitted yesterday, I find these ques- 
tions : 

In Tale of Two Cities what is gained by making some of the 
characters English? What is gained by having some parts of the 
story enacted in London, and some in Paris? Why not all in France? 

What principle of literary art demands Madame Defarge should 
be killed? If she must be killed, is an accident the proper means of 
compassing her death? 

Contrast was gained in making some of the characters English — 
the contrast between the characteristics of the English and the 
characteristics of the French. The contrast between the cooler 
judgment of the English and the enthusiastic qualities of the Latins. 
The showing to the world, especially to the Anglos, the Teutons 
and Scandinavians and the Gaels of the more permanent results of 
good coming from representative government appreciated by the 
people, with the appreciation shown by popular exercise of the rights 
and privileges pertaining to the electorate, rather than from oppres- 
sion of the peasantry by the privileged classes, continuing for 

265 



generations with the privileged classes coming to the fixed belief 
that the world and its products were theirs, in limitless boundaries. 
That brought about the uprising of the oppressed with the sting of 
complete disregard of the undoubted rights of all to life, to liberty 
of action within the law, and with the inalienable right to family and 
to home and to the accumulation of property moving the people of 
France to bloody extremes. 

The contrast between the cooler English ever fighting for free- 
dom, ever ''loving a Lord," but ever giving the privileged classes to 
understand that privileges came from the people — the lower and 
the middle classes — and that while nobility was part of the economic 
policies of England, yet there were limits beyond which privilege 
and privileged classes might not pass. The facts on which the con- 
trasts were based, were shown by Sidney Carton, one of the noblest 
and purest characters ever drawn by Dickens. A barrister, a 
gentleman, scholarly and refined, lazy and of no economic benefit 
to humanity, indifferent to all things save honor, Sidney Carton 
loved Lucie with a pure and devoted love, knowing that Lucie loved 
Evremonde. 

How and why Sidney Carton, resembling Evremonde marvelously, 
followed him to France, visited the cafe of Defarge, pretented ig- 
norance of the French language, sought and gained knowledge of 
the prison in which Evremonde was confined, compelled Sly to aid 
him, succeeded in his determination to save Evremonde, that Lucie 
might be made happy; how he gained entrance to Evremonde 's 
cell; drugged him; saw that he was taken from the cell, as Sidney 
Carton, the Englishman; how Evremonde was taken to England — 
these are incidents of the great work of Dickens. But the contrast 
between the two peoples Dickens drew so perfectly and his reasons 
for making some of the characters English — ^these elements of his 
magnificent rhetoric of expression and of action are shown in the 
thoughts of Sidney Carton as he stood awaiting his call to death — 
illustrating the great love no man can have who giveth his life for 
another. 



''They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the 
peacefulest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he 
looked sublime and prophetic. 

"One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same ax — a woman 
— ^had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be 
allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he 

266 



had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they 
would have been these: 

"I see Barsad, Cly, and Defarge — the vengeance, the juryman, 
the judge, long ranks of new oppressors who have risen on the de- 
struction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before 
it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a 
brilliant people arising from this abyss, and, in their struggle to be 
truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long, long years to 
come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which 
this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and 
wearing out. 

see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, 
prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. 
I see her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see 
her father aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to 
all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, 
so long their friend, in ten year's time enriching them with all he 
has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. 

*'I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts 
of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, 
weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her 
husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly 
bed, and I know that each was not more honored and held sacred inthe 
other's soul than I was in the souls of both. 

''I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my 
name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which was once 
mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illus- 
trious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, 
faded away. I see him foremost of just judges and honored men, 
bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden 
hair, to this place — then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this 
day's disfigurement — and I hear him tell the child my story with a 
tender and faltering voice. 

''It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it 
is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." 



"As he stood by the wall of a dim corner, while some of the 
fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to 
embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with 
a great dread of discovery; but the man went on. A very few 
moments after that, a young woman, with a slight girlish form, a 
sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of color, and largely 

267 



widely-opened patient eyes, rose from the seat where he had ob- 
served her sitting, and came to speak to him. 

''Citizen Evremonde," she said, touching him with her cold hand, 
"1 am a poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force/' 

He murmured for answer, 'True, I forgot what you were ac- 
cused of?'' 

"Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of 
any. Is it hkely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little 
weak creature like me?" 

The forlorn smile with which she said it so touched him, that tears 
started from his eyes. 

"I am not afraid to die citizen Evremonde, but I have done 
nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do 
so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not 
know how that can be, citizen Evremonde. Such a poor weak little 
creature!" 

As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften 
to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. 

"I heard you were released, citizen Evremonde. I hoped it was 
true?" 

"It was. But I was again taken and condemned." 

"If I may ride with you, citizen Evremonde, will you let me 
hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am a little weak, and it 
will give me more courage." 

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden 
doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn 
young fingers, and touched his lips. 

"Are you dying for him? she whispered. 

"And his wife and child. Hush. Yes." 

"Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?" 

"Hush. Yes, my poor sister, to the last." 

The same shadows that are falling on the prisons are falling, in 
that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd 
about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives to be examined. 

"Who goes there?" Whom have we within? Papers!" 

The papers are handed out and read. 

"Alexandre Manette, physician, French. Which is he?" 

"This is he;" this helpless inarticulately murmuring, wandering 
old man pointed out. 

"Apparently the citizen-doctor is not in his right mind? The 
revolution fever will have been too much for him." Greatly too 
much for him. 

"Ha! many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. 
Where is she?" This is she. 

268 



''Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evremonde; is it 
not?'' It is. 

''Ha! Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her 
child, English. This is she?" She and no other. 

"Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good 
Repubhcan; something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney 
Carton. Advocate. EngHsh. Which is he?" He lies here in this 
corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out. 



"But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I 
am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have 
been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that 
we might have hope and comfort here today. I think you were sent 
to m.e by Heaven." 

"Or you to me," says Sidney Carton. "Keep your eyes upon 
me, dear child, and mind no other object." 

"I mind nothing while I hold your hand, I shall mind nothing 
when I let it go, if they are rapid." 

"They will be rapid, fear not!" 

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they 
speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to 
hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, 
else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark 
highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom. 

"Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last 
question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me — just a little." 

"Tell me what it is." 

"I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, 
whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and 
she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted 
us, and she knows nothing of my fate — for I can not write — and if I 
could, how would I tell her? It is better as it is." 

"Yes, yes, better as it is." 

"What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am 
still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives 
me so much support, is this: If the Republic really does good to the 
poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, 
she may live a long time; she may even live to be old." 

"What then, my gentle sister?" 

"Do you think," the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so 
much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and 

269 



tremble; ''that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the 
better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?' 

"It can not be, my child; there is no time there, and no trouble 
there." 

"You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss 
you now. Is the moment come?" 
"Yes." 

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each 
other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing 
worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She 
goes next before him — is gone; the knitting women count twenty- 
two. 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord; he that 
believeth in Me, though he were dead, shall yet live, and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." 

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, 
the pressing on of many foorsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so 
that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water all 
flashes away. Twenty-three. 



Do you not see the procession to the guillotine? Do you not 
see brave, chivalrous, self-sacrificing Sidney Carton, to the latest 
moment comforting and consoling the sorrowing, whether in the 
giving of his life for Evremonde that Lucie might be happy, or in 
comforting and sustaining the poor little French milliner, led to the 
scaffold by the frenzied anarchists of the French Revolution? 
Do you not see her start of astonishment when she discovers that 
it is not Evremonde, but another dying for him? 

"Are you dying for him?" she whispered. 

"And his wife and child." 

"Oh, will you let me hold your brave hand, stranger?" 

"Hush. Yes, my poor sister, to the last." 

And the magnificent mastery of rhetoric Dickens had and held 
is shown when he leaves the guillotine and tells of the safety of the 
journey of Evremonde, Lucie and her little child — while Sidney 
Carton and the poor little seamstress bade each other good-bye and 
bravely went to death. 

What principle of literary art demands that Madame Defarge 
should be killed? If she must be killed, is an accident the proper 
means of encompassing her death? Is Miss Pross the appropriate 
person to bring about her death? 

The principle of literary art demanding the death of Madame 
DeFarge is the principle of coherence — coherence in the tragic 

270 



incidents and events in the Tale of Two Cities. It was not the 
principle involved in the perishing by the sword of him who takes the 
sword. But was it an ''accident" — in the real meaning of the word 
— that brought about the death of Madame DeFarge? Madame 
DeFarge visited the apartments of Dr. Manette with vengeance her 
sole object. The reason for her determination to bring havoc to the 
house of Evremonde and to work vengeance on Dr. Manette do not 
need to be mentioned in connection with the question. She was 
armed and bent on death to Lucie, to Dr. Manette and to others in 
any way connected with the tragedy of her own early life, as she told 
it in the; beginning of the Tale of Two Cities. And she met Miss 
Pross, as sincerely devoted to Lucie as Sidney Carton was and as 
willing to give her life that Lucie might be happy. Dickens thus 
tells the entire story of the death of Madame DeFarge: 

''I am a Briton," said Miss Pross. ''I am desperate. I don't 
care an English two-pence for myself. I know that the longer I 
keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I'll 
not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a 
finger on me!" 

'Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her 
eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole 
breath. Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life. 

"But her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought 
the irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that 
Madame DeFarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weak- 
ness. 'Ha, ha!' she laughed, 'you poor wretch! What are you 
worth? I address myself to that doctor.' Then she raised her 
voice and called out: 'Citizen Doctor! Wife of Evremonde, child 
Evremonde! Any person but this miserable fool, answer the citi- 
zeness DeFarge!' 

"I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped 
me; I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door," 
said Madame DeFarge. 

"We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary court- 
yard; we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength 
to keep you here; while every minute you are here is worth a hun- 
dred thuosand guineas to my darling, said Miss Pross." 

Madame DeFarge made at the door. Miss Pross on the instant 
of the moment seized her around the waist in both her arms and held 
her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they 
had. The two hands of Madame DeFarge buffeted and tore her 
face, but Miss Pross, with her head down, held her around the waist, 
and clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman. 

Soon Madame DeFarge's hands ceased to strike, and felt at her 

271 



encircled waist. "It is under my arm/' said Miss Pross in smothered 
tones; ''you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you; I bless 
heaven for it. I'll hold you till one or the other of us faints or dies." 

Madame DeFarge's hands were at her bosom, Miss Pross looked 
up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, 
and stood — blinded with smoke. 

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared away, leaving an 
awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious 
woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground. 

Was it an accident? And if it were not an accident; if Miss 
Pross had wrenched the pistol from the grasp of Madame DeFarge 
and shot her to death, what valid objection could there be raised, 
considering the question wholly from the rhetorical point of view? 

Madame DeFarge had become convinced that Miss Pross was 
playing with her; possibly that Lucie had escaped and Dr. Manette 
with her; that one of the chief objects moving her to vengeance 
unabated had been taken from her through the devotion of Miss 
Pross — and she moved her hand to her bosom, ''Miss Pross looked 
up, saw what it was; struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, 
and stood^ — blinded with smoke." 

It was not an accident. If Madame DeFarge had not had the 
weapon- — if Dickens had not rhetoretically given it to her — Miss 
Pross would have stood her ground until the end, but Madame 
DeFarge would have succeeded in her object — to ascertain where 
Lucie and Dr. Manette were. She might have cried to the throngs 
on the street; she might have gone to the street and called for as- 
sistance from the passers-by — and the coherence of the story might 
have been marred if not destroyed. It is to be remembered that in 
the coach speeding to the coast were Dr. Manette, Evremonde, Lucie 
and the little child for whom Sidney Carton gave his life. And 
Dickens, writing of a tragedy — the tragedy of the French Revolution 
— ^raised the hands of Madame DeFarge to her breast in search for 
the weapon with which she would have killed Miss Pross — and Miss 
Pross saw the movement and the weapon and struck at it. Co- 
herence was preserved. Was Miss Pross the appropriate person to 
bring about the death of Madame DeFarge? Unquestionably 
and notwithstanding the fact that Madame DeFarge herself, was 
an agent in causing her own death as fully, if not more fully, than 
was Miss Pross. Miss Pross was not blameable — not even in the 
remotest degree. She loved Lucie with the love of a mother. Her 
life would have been given for Lucie as willingly and as gladly as 
Sidney Carton gave his life for Evremonde that Lucie might be 
happy — and Madame DeFarge knew it. 

And in the showing of contrasts Madame DeFarge and Miss 

272 



Pross play an important part. There, again, is the contrast between 
the determination of the Enghsh woman and the frenzied enthu- 
siasm of the French woman in the days of the revolution. The 
Tale of Two Cities is the masterpiece of Dickens — one of the master- 
pieces of English literature. You, who have read it, read it again 
and give it to your high school pupils to read. You, who have not 
read it, procure it and read it and study it from beginning to end- 
ing. The answers to the questions submitted yesterday were not 
and are not time losers. The Tale of the Two Cities is and will be 
to you and teach to you, and to your pupils, a most effective rhe- 
torical inspiration and lesson. I am grateful to the Sisters sub- 
mitting the questions. 

*'In comparing the Tale of Two Cities with Ivanhoe, which 
gives the clearer impression of the time it depicts?" Emphatically, 
The Tale of Two Cities. 

I love Thackeray better than Dickens and Scott holds a higher 
place in my esteem than does the author of ''Our Mutual Friend," 
but when it comes to The Tale of Two Cities, my admiration, my 
esteem and my powers of rhetoric — such as they may be — forget 
Thackeray and Scott and cling to the writer of the greatest master- 
piece of modern literature— the book whose merits I have ventured 
to discuss before you. 

In his greatest work, Dickens not only created characters but he 
fitted them to events and fitted the events to his characters. He 
could have invented the events — but he seized upon the dreadful 
events in France and mastered them and rhetoric is the gainer. 
He contrasted two nations and two peoples. He showed the failing 
of the English people or part of them — in Sly, the spy. He showed 
the weaknesses of the French in DeFarge; their vengeful qualities 
in Madame DeFarge; their virtues in the little French girl who died 
with Sidney Carton and in very many others. Sidney Carton summed 
up the contrast in the thoughts that came to him as he gave up his 
life for a friend. The hour has not been lost in the discussion of 
the questions submitted. Rhetoric of the most perfect quality is 
involved in them and I have endeavored to illustrate it to you. 
If I have not fulfilled my intent and my earnest desire, Dickens will 
supply the defects apparent in me. 



There are comparisons between the depiction of scenes in Ivanhoe 
by Scott and in a Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. Scott depicted 
scenes and incidents of a great romance. His characters were taken 
from history or very many of them, with Cedric, the Saxon, with 
Gurgh and Wamba and the Prior of Jorvaux, invented by Scott — 



273 



the first for the portrayal of the Saxon and the born thralls of the 
Saxon and the Prior for the purpose Scott always had in mind — 
giving the worst possible characters to the priests and prelates of the 
Church. Richard was an historical character and Scott has por- 
trayed him rightly — not alone as Richard the Lion-hearted, but as 
the Black Knight, the guest of Robin Hood and of Friar Tuck. The 
Templars were historical — and Scott shows his hatred to the Church, 
again, in his bitter portrayals of their membership — with facts 
going far to uphold him in his arraignment of their fall from the 
original objects of their establishment and their recognition by the 
Church. But what of it all? In which of the two books are the 
scenes more perfectly depicted and why? 

Scott was writing a romance and had the characters at his com- 
mand and of a period so remote that he cOuld take even greater 
liberties than are allowed to writers of events of contemporaneous 
history. He had a definite object in view, no doubt — the final 
passing of the Saxon, the fixed rule of the Norman, the passing of 
allegiance by Ivanhoe from the rule of the Saxon to allegiance to 
the Norman, angering his father Cedric to the utmost with even 
Cedric yielding, at last, a grumbling allegiance to the facts of the 
situation as it then was in England, but ever retaining his Saxonism, 
with Ivanhoe recognizing the inevitable and acting accordingly. 
Scott depicted the events, so to call them, of a romance. In a 
Tale of Two Cities Dickens depicted concrete facts. In Ivanhoe 
Scott seems to depend- more on his characters and their stronger 
or weaker individualities or personalities, and it was impossible, 
therefore, for him to depict either characters or events as clearly 
and as forcibly as Dickens did in the tragedy of, practically, his 
own day and time as he gives it in his Tale of Two Cities. 

Each was a master; each was a genius, the one was stately, 
always classic and each possessed the faculty of description in a 
marvelous degree. There is a strain of romance in the Tale of 
Two Cities, but it is wholly subordinate. There is a strain of ro- 
mance in Ivanhoe and it could not be otherwise, for Scott was a 
writer gifted with the art of holding fast his hearers after he threw 
away his tedious pen of introductions and of prefatory remarks 
and so on. Dickens plunged directly into his great work, its events, 
its incidents and its characters. The romance in Ivanhoe is per- 
sistent. The romance in a Tale of Two Cities — ^the love of Evre- 
monde and Lucie — was used largely to illustrate the self-sacrifice, 
the unselfishness and the devotedness of Sidney Carton. The 
scenes in a Tale of Two Cities were depicted with greater clearness 
and force by Dickens than the scenes and incidents in Ivanhoe 
depicted by Scott. 

274 



Contrasts Between Claudius and MacBeth. 




HE qualities of Claudius urging him to action were 
all his own. Those of MacBeth were the qualities 
his wife forced upon him. Both men were weak. 
MacBeth was weak from his ever troubled con- 
science. Claudius from dread of discovery and 
the temporal consequences which would follow. 



MacBeth felt and appreciated his future — ^his 
eternal life or death. He looked men boldly in the face and was 
courageous throughout. 

Claudius, ever suspicious, had his army of spies. 

MacBeth, after attaining the crown, hired known and bloody 
murderers to do his bidding in the killing of Banquo and the at- 
tempted murder of Fleance on Scottish soil — for there would be 
none to call him to account, remembering that which his wife had 
told him of exemption from accountability after he had grasped the 
crown. Claudius, desirous of being rid of Hamlet, sends him to 
England, with Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, with sealed instructions 
to his subjects in England to put Hamlet to death on foreign soil. 
His intent failed through the thoughtfulness, cunning, if you wish 
to call it, of Hamlet. MacBeth was a man of physical courage and 
without inherent wicked ambitions. Claudius, from the general 
view of his character, and from his cowardly methods of murder, was 
a man without physical courage and filled with wicked ambitions 
inherent in him. Both were murderers. MacBeth was not a pre- 
meditated or deliberate murderer. Claudius was. 

MacBeth did not devise the plan of the murder of Duncan. 
Claudius devised and carried into execution the murder of Hamlet's 
father. MacBeth went to the slaying of Duncan with drawn weapon 
in his hand. There was a possibility of Duncan or of the grooms 
awakening and calling for help, notwithstanding the wassail with 
which Lady MacBeth had served them and, as she said, stupified 
them. The grooms did awake. One cried ''God bless us," and the 
other said *'Amen." The possibility of the grooms, or of Duncan, 
awaking sufficiently to act was, of course, but slight. There was, 
however, a possibility of their awakening. There was also a pos- 



275 



sibility of some one or other of the guests in the castle being awake. 
But MacBeth faced all physical dangers on his bloody errand. 

The murder done by Claudius was done in a manner and method 
most cowardly. Hamlet's father, brother to Claudius, was sleeping 
in the garden. No one was near, and even though within call would 
not have approached royalty without a summons. 

The blood of Duncan flowed profusely. The blood of Hamlet's 
father was stilled. MacBeth slew Duncan with a knife. Claudius 
slew with poison poured into the ear of the sleeping King of Den- 
mark. 

There can be no question made of the cowardliness of the means 
by which the murder of Hamlet's father was accomplished. To kill 
by poison is incontrovertible evidence and proof of premeditation 
and of malice aforethought. Poison is not, and can not be, admin- 
istered in sudden heat and passion, as knives or swords are drawn and 
used, as MacBeth used them. Swords may be drawn in sudden heat 
and passion, upon the giving of an unexpected offence — but killing 
by poison, never. 

MacBeth took his hfe in his own hands and faced a risk. Claudi- 
us took the life of Hamlet's father into his hands, but not his own, 
when he accomplished his shocking act and went on his way rejoicing. 
He knew that no human means could bring about knowledge of the 
way he took, nor even of the man who took it. MacBeth and 
Claudius resembled each other in killings — the one killing his King 
and guest, the other killing his King and brother; Claudius killing 
his host as MacBeth his guest. MacBeth was weak in his will power 
but strong physically. 

Claudius also was strong physically; treacherous in his mentality, 
in his soul and in himself throughout. MacBeth was not innately 
treacherous but once he had tasted blood, though at the instigation 
of his wife, the taste grew upon him — grew by what it fed upon and 
his ways were bloody afterwards. MacBeth was not treacherous, 
at least not treacherous in the beginning. Claudius was treacherous 
from the beginning. His treachery grew from the poisoning of the 
King to his commands to his English subjects to slay Hamlet when 
they laid their hands upon him. From that it grew, upon the return 
of Hamlet to Denmark, to the staging of the poisoned swords in the 
combat with Laertes. Claudius won the consequences of his own 
villainy as MacBeth did, with MacBeth appreciating the fact and in 
soliloquy most eloquently portraying it. While the castle of Mac- 
Beth, Dunsinane, is besieged Lady MacBeth dies and there is a wail 
of women coming from her room. MacBeth knows of her illness. 
When the wail comes and he is told of the death of his wife, MacBeth 
is planning and maintaining a gallant and persistent defence against 

276 



the forces under MacDuff and Malcolm. At the time of the death 
of Hamlet's mother Claudius was carrying out his plan of the death 
of Hamlet through treachery. 

This time, Claudius believes the death of Hamlet is certain at the 
hands of Laertes whom Claudius has drawn, through treachery, 
from friendship to Hamlet to enmity. The poisoned cup is near. 
Gertrude seizes it and drinks of it. And all that Claudius says is, 
''It is too late." It is true that he had asked her not to drink of it 
but, evidently, though they were sitting near each other, his request 
was uttered in a faint whisper. He mourns not for Gertrude, nor 
gives any sign of grief, as MacBeth did not. Both men were en- 
gaged in great affairs, in efforts to maintain possession of crowns 
rightly belonging to neither one of them. 

The battle at Dunsinane continues; the gates are forced and 
MacDuff meets with MacBeth who, at first, will not fight, but later 
fights, exclaiming: 

"Lay on, MacDuff! and damned be he 
Who first cries 'Hold! Enough!' " 

Later MacDuff carries MacBeth 's head into the presence of 
Malcolm who is proclaimed King of Scotland, with the head itself, 
telhng the whole story. Laertes, dying, tells the story as to Claudius 
and there comes his killing by Hamlet face to face, and with the 
poisoned sword Claudius had intended for Hamlet. 

The stricken and sorrowing Horatio stands over the corpses, the 
result of the vile ambitions of Claudius accomplished by the cowardly 
method of poisoning, better becoming the field of battle than the 
palace of a king. 

Around the triumphant MacDuff, holding aloft the eye-closed 
head of MacBeth in his hands, are the loyal Thanes and Earls of 
Scotland saluting Malcolm as their King — Malcolm, the son of 
Duncan, whom MacBeth had slain. 

Around the body of Claudius were the bodies of Laertes, of Ger- 
trude and Hamlet, dying — there was the body of his wife, Hamlet's 
mother, who had no part whatever in the murder of Hamlet's father. 

Claudius and his wife were side by side in death. The one from 
poison intended for Hamlet, the other, Claudius, from the bite of the 
poisoned sword reeking vengeance upon the treacherous projector. 
In their deaths MacBeth and his wife were not together, as Claudius 
and Gertrude were together. 

While the Thanes and Earls of Scotland were hailing their new 
King in the person of the son of Duncan — the son to whom the 
throne by right belonged while Laertes is dead, the others dying, 
there comes the sound of martial music and the tramp of soldiers 

277 



marching and Fortinbras, of Norway, stranger to the throne, is 
hailed ''King of Denmark." 

Lady MacBeth dies with the wail of unseen women coming from 
her bedside. No word of sorrow goes from him to her nor from her 
to him. MacBeth dies the death of a soldier. Claudius, the death 
of a cowardly and treacherous man. Gertrude knows nothing of the 
treacherous deeds or plans of Claudius. He tells her nothing of 
them. Lady MacBeth not alone knew of the plans to attain the 
throne, but devised them and directed that which her husband should 
do and which he did. After they had captured the throne they were 
one in mutual confidence and communication of intents and purposes 
and things to be accomplished. 

The path of Claudius was the path of treachery throughout — 
treachery in which his hand could not be traced. There was blood 
upon his soul but none upon his hands, as there was upon the hands 
of MacBeth who mourned that not all the waters of Neptune could 
cleanse them from the stain, but Gertrude was no partner in the 
treacheries of Claudius and there was no communication of them 
to her. MacBeth knew of the treachery against Duncan in the 
fact that their King, kinsman and guest was to be the subject of 
their hideous deed. 

But while Gertrude had neither part nor parcel in the deeds of 
Claudius she was unwomanly in her hasty marriage with the brother 
of her husband. 

Lady MacBeth yearned for the royal crown and determined 
that her husband should be King, that she might be Queen. Ger- 
trude had worn the crown and would not part with it, marrying 
Claudius that she might retain it and while of her marriage to 
Claudius no question is made, it was most unwomanly. "Within 
a month," as Hamlet says, '' 'ere yet the shoes were old in which she, 
all tearful, had followed his poor father to the grave," she marries 
Claudius and retains the crown. 

While we must condemn Lady MacBeth, we must come closely 
to despising Gertrude. She forgot not alone her husband and the 
respect due to him, but she forgot her son and for a time the mother- 
love that should be his. She awakens at the last when Claudius 
says she has swooned because of the bloody contest to cry out : 

"No! No! The drink, the drink — Oh, my dear Hamlet — 
The drink, the drink! I am poisoned." 

She knew she was poisoned, for the poison that Claudius used 
worked quickly, but she did not know that he had prepared the 
poisoned cup for Hamlet. She is free of blame in that regard. 
MacBeth and Lady MacBeth, with the latter's powers of persuasion, 
came to hold their plots in common. 

278 



Gertrude showed some remnants of womanliness in her love for 
Ophelia and a recurring to mother-love in her cry to ''My dear 
Hamlet." Lady MacBeth loved no one save herself. MacBeth is 
a tragedy of blood and a most wonderful exposition, or presentation, 
of the sure punishment that comes to them who take the sword. 
Hamlet is a tragedy of treachery with like punishment coming to 
them who follow means against which the object can have no de- 
fence, as it comes to them who take the sword. 

MacBeth took the sword into his hands at the instigation of his 
wife— at times a peremptory instigation and at other times an in- 
stigation of persuasiveness. Claudius prepared the poison and 
poured it into the ear of his sleeping brother at the instigation of his 
own base self. So did he put the poisoned sword into the hands of 
Laertes from whence it passed into the hands of Hamlet at the in- 
stigation of his base nature. Both were punished, and deservedly 
punished. MacBeth, however, met his fate and lost his life in brave 
combat with MacDuff, face to face and sword to sword, and the 
crown of Scotland passed from the bloody possession of MacBeth 
to the rightful possession of Malcolm. 

Claudius met his death at the hands of him from whose father 
the crown of Denmark had been stolen — not a death face to face nor 
sword to sword, but at the hands of the dying son seeking ever to 
avenge the murder of his father. 

MacBeth was dominated by his wife. Claudius dominated 
Gertrude. MacBeth imagined that he saw the dagger with its 
handle towards his hand and he imagined that he saw the ghost of 
Banquo. Hamlet not only saw the ghost of his father, but hailed it, 
talked with it, conversed with it. The dagger gave silent commands 
or suggestions to MacBeth. The ghost of Banquo said nothing to 
him. The commands of the ghost of Hamlet's father were as plain, 
as distinct and as emphatic as were the commands of Lady MacBeth 
to her weakling husband. MacBeth, once roused to action by his 
wife, or after obtaining the crown by his determination to retain it 
not alone for the glory of the sceptre, but for the fact that possession 
of it eliminated possibility of his being called to account, continued 
on paths of blood. 

Claudius would use bloody measures only through others- 
treachery and the poison path being most suited to his craven nature. 
After becoming King, MacBeth would use bloody means through 
the hands of others, as well as by his own hands as the occasion might 
require. Claudius was persistent in the use of treachery at all 
times. In his hiring of the murderers for the slaying of Banquo 
and Fleance, there is given a suggestion that MacBeth, the King, 
felt that it was not for him to do that which the Thane of Cawdor 
might have done. 

279 



The scenes of both tragedies are laid in the cold and biting North. 
In the Highlands of Scotland, with their mountains and their mists 
and where clan fought clan and the Highlands and the Lowlands 
ever were at odds, the tragedy of blood is staged. The tragedy of 
treachery also is staged in the far North. In Denmark, where the 
mists of the North prevailed; where the cold winds of the Arctic 
held their influence and where, as in Scotland, there were apparitions 
and ghosts and witches and grandams tales told by the winter's 
fireside. Striking though the similarities between the two countries 
are, in close communion in physical characteristics though Den- 
mark and Scotland were, there is the most distinctively marked 
contrasts between the men and the women portrayed in the two 
great tragedies. 

MacBeth was brave in combat on the field; MacDuff was brave 
and so were Malcolm and Ross and Lenox. Duncan was courageous 
—all Scotland and each and every one of the characters in MacBeth 
was brave in the face of the enemy. If we are to judge of that other 
Northern people, the Danes who had ruled the seas, taken England 
over and has even gone into the Lowlands of Scotland — if we are to 
judge them by the portrayal of Shakespeare, there was not one brave 
man among them save Horatio. Claudius was not brave; Laertes 
was not brave in the true meaning of the term, for brave men are 
strong, and Laertes allowed himself to be overcome by the tales and 
the gossip of Claudius. And only in his death throbs he recovered 
himself and asked pardon of Hamlet whom, at last, he appreciated 
that he had betrayed. 

In MacBeth, apart from the urgings and the instigations of Lady 
MacBeth, deeds were done in the open. In Denmark it is taught 
from the tragedy that espionage was the Danish weapon — the 
weapon, at least, of the Danish court. King and courtier alike. 

In Hamlet there is the character of Polonius — a courtier through- 
out, at all times and under all circumstances. Willing to admit, after 
Hamlet had suggested it, that the cloud was backed like a camel and 
very like a whale, indeed. A courtier and a spy of the King, hiding 
behind the arras to listen and to report to the King that which he 
heard between Hamlet and his mother. Yet Shakespeare selects 
him to give utterance to the advice to Hotario. It may be well to 
quote it: 

"And these few precepts in thy memory. 
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue. 
Nor any unproportioned thought his act. 
Be thou famihar, but by no means vulgar. 
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; 
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment, 



Of each new hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware 

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in 

Bear'st though that the opposed may beware of thee. 

Give every man thy ear, but few thy words; 

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 

Costly thy habit as they purse can buy. 

But not expressed in fancy; rich but not gaudy; 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man; 

And they, in France, of the best rank and station 

Are of a most select and generous chief in that. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; 

For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 

And borrowing dulls the edge of industry; 

This, above all; to thine own self be true, 

And it must follow, as the night the day. 

Thou can'st not then be false to any man 

Farewell, my blessing season this in thee." 

It has been objected to the parting advice of Polonius that it 
was but a recital of well known and exceedingly ancient sprigs of 
wisdom and of truth. Admitting, for the sake of the argument, 
that the critics are right in their views, we may be allowed to ask the 
meaning or the intent of Shakespeare, and we may be willing to 
admit, as a general proposition, that the advice given to Laertes by 
his father was, indeed, ancient. Shakespeare makes the Danish 
people, the court people, a people of hypocrisy and of treachery. 
Was Polonius exempt? Or was it not the intent and purpose of 
Shakespeare to strengthen the illustrations of treachery and hy- 
pocrisy by using Polonius — Polonius, the courtier innately and 
Polonius, who had held office under the brother of Claudius and 
under Claudius, himself ; Polonius, the courtier who looked in Ham- 
let's face and knowing him to be of the royal family, son of the 
Queen and nearest to the succession, willing to assent to any descrip- 
tion Hamlet might be willing to demand of the clouds — backed like 
a camel and very like a whale — did not Shakespeare intend to 
portray to the utmost the estimate he held of the Danish royal 
family and court in selecting Polonius as the disseminator of sound 
ethics and good advice on matters of daily life? It was well to advise 
Laertes neither a borrower nor a lender to be ; that he should ap- 
parel himself according to his means and his station in life. It was 
good advice, no doubt and might have been remembered by Laertes 
to his advancement and his ultimate success. But: 

"This, above all; to thine own self be true. 
And it must follow, as the night the day. 
Thou can'st not then be false to any man. 
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee." 



281 



Had Polonius ever been true to himself? Unquestionably he 
meant that Laertes should be true to himself in all the higher at- 
tributes. Had he ever been true in them to himself? Was he not 
a courtier, the Chamberlain to the King, depending on royal favor 
for his existence and does not his whole character and career show a 
craving for royal favor? If he had been true to himself, as he advised 
Laertes to be, it followed, '*as the night the day" that he could not 
then have been false to any man. Yet he was grossly false to Hamlet 
— false at the bidding of the King before whom he bends with the 
cringing homage of a faltering and unmanly spirit. In his telling 
of the return of the ambassadors from Norway, he is met with the 
answer that still he has been the father of good news and he bows 
before the throne and utters these false-hearted and courtlike 
words: ^ 

"Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege, 
I hold my duty as I hold my soul, 
Both to my God and to my gracious King; 
And I do think, or else this brain of mine 
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure, 
As it hath used to do, that I have found 
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy." 

And Claudius tells Gertrude that Polonius has found the cause 
of Hamlet's lunacy. She answers that it is no other than his father's 
death and our o'er hasty marriage and Claudius answers: "Well, 
we will sift him." That is another matter. The present contention 
is with Polonius and his hypocrisy. His assertion that he holds his 
duty as he holds his soul, both to his God and to his ''gracious 
King," and serving his King only because upon his King his coutier 
life depended. To select Polonius, of all characters in Hamlet the 
most unfitted, to impress upon Laertes the duty of being true to 
himself, was to select the one least fitted for the general purpose, 
but the most fitted for the purpose of showing the shallow and the 
hypocritical qualities of the Danish royal family. 

Shakespeare knew it and used it rightly, as he used the career of 
MacBeth to show the reign of blood. MacBeth and Lady MacBeth, 
usurpers, and the tragedy of blood in Scottland. Claudius, the 
usurper, and the tragedy of treachery in Denmark. Moreover, 
and an additional evidence of the intent and purpose of Shakespeare 
and the weakness of the Danish character he had in view, the parting 
advice of Polonius fell on unlistening ears or on arid soil. 'To thy- 
self be true, Laertes, and it follows, as the night the day, thou cans't 
not then be false to any man." Was Laertes true to Hamlet, his 
friend? Did he not betray Hamlet? Did he not lend himself to 
the vilest and most treacherous plot of Claudius for the murder of 

282 



Hamlet — a murder to be brought about in a sword play, wherein 
the blame of death could not be laid upon the victor, nor on Claudius? 
In all the tragedy of blood there is none like unto Polonius. 

Filled with sharp contrasts, and some few close similarities, the 
tragedies of MacBeth and Hamlet are foremost and most worthy of 
your study. Each and every element of rhetoric is to be found in the 
two great works — exposition, narration, description and, above all, 
persuasion or argumentation. The two tragedies are worthy of 
study because of the profound knowledge of the weaknesses and the 
strengths of man and of woman portrayed in each ; the motives and 
the impulses, the suggestions and the persuasions with the great 
lesson taught in both that the man untrue to himself — that is untrue 
to right ethics and forgetful of the future — the eternal future — 
can not be true to any man nor to any right principle and that punish- 
ment, equivalent to his deserts, is inevitable. 

Life on sound ethics there was, undoubtedly, both in Scotland 
and in Denmark, in the whole world, in fact, in the days of MacBeth 
and of Claudius. Not a doubt of it, as there is not a doubt that today 
many lives are lived with sound ethics the basis. It is equally true, 
and most unfortunately, that in the days of MacBeth and of Claudius 
men there were, and kings and would-be kings there were, and 
Thanes and Earls and courtiers to whom the things of the day were 
alone considered and ethics a shallow, and a troublesome rule of 
conduct. 

The great master of effective language portrays the times and 
the scenes and the men and the events of the days of blood and the 
days of treachery as never were they before portrayed and never 
since. If you would study the rules of effective language, study 
Shakespeare. There are other great writers; other great masters of 
effective language — but the world admits that in profundity of 
knowledge of human nature no less than of language ; in the greatest 
effectiveness of its use; in complete use of the what, today, are 
rightly considered the four essential elements of rhetoric, there is 
none like unto the author of MacBeth and of Hamlet. 

There could not possibly be more striking contrasts than be- 
tween the characters of the Scot and the Dane as Shakespeare uses 
them. But they must be studied to be appreciated and, once ap- 
preciated, they will never pass from the mentality in their great 
influence on the teacher or on the student. 

It is true we search with labor and find with difficulty the better 
elements of humanity in either tragedy but it is not strange that it is 
so, for one is a tragedy of blood and the other of treachery. We 
know that Duncan was good and kindly and gentle; that while a 
King, he was never a tyrant; but that he bore himself with gentle 

283 



grace in his high office. We have the testimony of MacBeth to 
that effect, and in the few words we hear from the Hps of Duncan; 
the few gHmpses we have of his bearing give testimony to the truth 
of the description MacBeth gives of him. We know but httle of 
Malcolm and more of MacDuff ; we know that MacDuff was brave 
and strong and true to his King and to the Prince who had been 
cheated of his throne by the urgings of Lady MacBeth on her un- 
willing and weakling husband. 

We know MacDuff was brave in combat, but so was MacBeth. 
Turn where we will, we find the worse, the baser, elements predomi- 
nating in the characters in the two great tragedies. Yet we must 
not judge all Scottish men nor all Danish men by the dominant 
characters in the two tragedies, with the frank admission, however, 
that Shakespeare gives us few opportunities for grasping at belief of 
the existence of a higher grade of men in either kingdom — ^but re- 
member ever that he had a distinct object in view and developed it 
most admirably throughout. 

There was one man in MacBeth portrayed in few but most 
effective words as of the higher and the better order — Duncan. Is 
there one to be found in Hamlet? Horatio? Then we have two men 
on whom we may place laurel crowns — the one, of venerable age 
disappearing amost coincidentally with his appearance at Dunsi- 
nane. The other, young and but fairly entering on life, with his 
close friend dead, with the bitterest of memories upon him and with 
a stranger taking the throne of Denmark. We know the past of 
Duncan; we can not know the future of Horatio. 

If we are to judge the men of Scotland and of Denmark by the 
characters of MacBeth, of Claudius, of Polonius, of Rensencrantz and 
Guildenstern, of Laertes, of Malcolm and of the others protrayed, 
are we to judge the women of the two countries by Lady MacBeth 
and by Gertrude? There is, in fact, but one woman playing a part 
in MacBeth and that is Lady MacBeth herself. There is, it is true, 
Lady MacDuff, but she plays a part altogether unimportant. There 
is the wail of women coming from the room wherein Lady MacBeth is 
dying and the wail is one of mourning and of grief, indeed. It may 
be possible that to her inferiors in position Lady MacBeth was con- 
siderate and kind. It is to be so hoped. But, whether that be so 
or be not so, must we judge the women of Scotland by her alone? 
Must we judge the women of Denmark by Gertrude? By no means 
and Shakespeare never intended that that should be done. The 
tragedy of blood had but one woman in it. The tragedy of treachery 
had two. Gertrude and Ophelia. Taking for the leading character 
in his tragedy of blood, an indecisive man, a weakling of physical 

284 



courage but of vacillation, always requiring that his courage be 
pushed in the efforts at attainment of the throne, Shakespeare took 
a woman for the guiding and the dominant spirit. No man could 
have stood behind MacBeth and pointed the. way to the bloody 
steps of the throne of Scotland. The man would reason; the woman 
could and would and did persuade and the one woman in the world 
to take and hold and keep dominance over MacBeth could be none 
other than his wife. Shakespeare took her and portrayed her not 
as illustrative of the womanhood of Scotland, but to show to what 
depths a woman could fall when mad ambition took possession of 
her soul and strangled all things else. 

Neither was Gertrude illustrative of the womanhood of Den- 
mark — and neither she nor Lady MacBeth illustrative of womanhood 
in any age nor in any generation. The one was strong and per- 
sistent; the other was weak and halting; the one brought on her 
head the punishment due to her own crimes and to the crimes of 
which her husband was guilty, with herself a guilty accessory. 
Gertrude brought on her head no punishment for any crime she had 
committed, and she was neither party nor accessory to crimes her 
husband had committed in the murder of her husband, nor in the 
plotted murder of her son. But she was punished, and rightly 
punished, for what she herself calls ''our o'er hasty marriage," 
wherein she had offended against true womanhood. 

In MacBeth, the tragedy of blood, there is no scene of love; 
nothing to lighten the heavy clouds of the great tragedy. In Ham- 
let, the tragedy of treachery, there is Ophelia — gentle, fair, true and 
womanly. Loving Hamlet and loved by him — notwithstanding his 
cruel ''once'' he had loved her. But her father had warned her 
against him; her father, the creature of the King and having within 
him not one drop of the milk of human kindness; Laertes had 
warned her against him. Fair, gentle, womanly, affectionate and 
loving! High minded, pure and elevating, but with her life wrecked, 
her father dead, her reason gone and the whole world a blank to her 
she dies by her own hand. One kindly quality of Gertrude, plainly 
written in the tragedy, with none written of and none accorded the 
wife of MacBeth, is shown at the grave of Ophelia, and dropping 
the flowers upon the coffin, Gertrude says in deep sincerity: 

"Sweets to the sweet; farewell." She had hoped that Ophelia 
might have been her Hamlet's bride, with flowers for the wedding 
but not for the grave. She means it ! There was some womanliness 
left in her and her hands were not stained with blood as were the 
hands of Lady MacBeth. Did Hamlet love Ophelia sincerely and 
continuously? Or did he only love her "once" as he cruelly told 
her? He hears the outspoken grief of Laertes in the grave and asks: 

285 



"What is he whose grief 
Bears such an emphasis? Whose phase of sorrow 
Conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand, 
Like wonder wounded hearers? This is I — 
Hamlet, the Dane." 

Did he love her? That very cry that he is "Hamlet, the Dane/' 
shows the recurrence of manhood in him, a recurrence to his rightful 
name and place as Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, in the presence of 
the usurping King and in the shadow of the grave wherein was the 
body of her he had, indeed, loved with sincere affection, the tragedy 
of treachery alone separating them. He jumps into the grave and 
he and Laertes come together, with hands at each other's throat. 
Claudius is concerned for Laertes, more than he is for Hamlet. 
Gertrude is concerned for her son. 

Hamlet. — 

"Why I will fight with him upon this theme. 
Until my eye-lids will no longer wag." 

The Queen. — 

"0, my son! Upon what theme?" 

Hamlet. — 

"I loved Ophelia! Forty thousand brothers 
Could not, with all their quantity of love, 
Make up my sum." 

Yes, Hamlet loved Ophelia, the one bright, clean and pure shining 
star in the tragedy of treachery as there was not one in the tragedy 
of blood. Therein is one of the greatest and most striking contrasts 
possible. There is not one episode in the career of Lady MacBeth 
to which- we can point as illustrative of one womanly quality in her. 
There is in Gertrude at the grave of Ophelia, and at the coming of the 
due punishment to Claudius, to herself, to Laertes and to Hamlet, 
the Dane! There is no sign of stricken conscience in Lady MacBeth 
at any time, as there is in Gertrude when she tells Claudius that the 
madness of Hamlet is due, no doubt to the death of his father and 
their o'er hasty marriage. 

There is no sign of stricken conscience in Claudius at any time, 
coward that he was, as there is in MacBeth at all times, brave and 
gallant and murderous as he was. 

There must, of necessity, be contrasts in abundance and few 
similarities in tragedies of blood and tragedies of treachery. The 
ends sought may be the same, but the methods differ, and so must 
characters differ. We may regret the fate of MacBeth for he died 
with sword in hand and facing his enemy. We can not regret the 
death of Claudius for he died the death of a treacherous brother, 



286 



treacherous in all things. The wail of the women from the death 
chamber of Lady MacBeth brings for her, possibly, one thought of 
pity — not of grief or mourning. 

We mourn the death of Duncan for his high and noble qualities; 
we mourn the death of Hamlet, the Dane, indecisive and inactive, 
knowing the call of duty as the ghost of his father impressed it on 
him; we mourn him for his love for Opehlia and the treachery that 
stood between them. We can not deeply mourn the death of 
Laertes, for he had betrayed Hamlet. We can not mourn for 
Gertrude — in her was none of the terrible energies and intents of 
Lady MacBeth, while both were filled with ambition, the one to 
attain the crown of Scotland and the other to hold the crown of 
Denmark. The one to attain the crown at the expense of honor and 
of duty and of hospitality and of a life and the other to hold the 
crown at the expense of womanliness and at the expense of the un- 
doubted election of her son, Hamlet, to the throne if she, the Queen, 
had not married his uncle. The one for whom we mourn and 
grieve is Ophelia. Shakespeare magnificently portrays her and her 
sincere affection for Hamlet and at her grave we know that Hamlet's 
affection for her had not diminished. 

There are great and deep meanings in the contrasts between 
MacBeth and Claudius and between the tragedy of blood and the 
tragedy of treachery — worthy of your study and your deep considera- 
tion for in both there is displayed the most perfect powers of per- 
suasion possible, with the other elements secondary but, none the 
less, playing a most instructive part. 



287 



THE PART OF FLEANCE. 




HERE comes this question submitted with the ques- 
tion of the turning point in the career of Mac- 
Beth and the escape of Fleance: ''In MacBeth 
what dramatic value has the introduction of the 
porter scene between the crime and its discovery? 
Do we find a violation of unity in this?" The 



porter is rough and brutal in his language. The 
greatest tragedy of blood possible, had been committed during the 
night. It had been more unruly — immeasurely unruly, in fact — ^than 
the night without the castle and Lenox, talking with MacBeth after 
the porter has opened the gates, is gentle in description of the 
physical storm in which chimneys had been blown down and, as he 
was told, lamentations heard in the air; strange screams of death 
and prophesyings of dire combustion and confused events, new 
hatched to the woful time; the obscure bird had clamored the entire 
night; some even said the earth was feverous and did shake. To 
all of which MacBeth merely answers that it was a rough night and 
the ''young remembrance of Lenox cannot parallel a fellow to it.'' 

All this was between the crime and its discovery. There was no 
violation of the principle of unity in it. MacDuff has entered with 
Lenox asking if the King were stirring. MacBeth had almost 
slipped the hour on the coming of which he was to call the King and 
would call him now. But MacDuff says it is his limited service and 
goes, with the conversation following between Lenox and the mur- 
derer of his guest. There is unity in it throughout. The bloody 
tragedy will be discovered in a moment. MacBeth has straightened 
every nerve within him in awaiting the coming of MacDuff. The 
night had been only a rough night to him and, after the going of 
MacDuff to the chamber wherein Duncan had slept, his courtesy to 
young Lenox is scant and not in keeping with the courtesy ever 
distinguishing him. He hears what Lenox says, but that is all. 
His mind is alert to the utmost point of tension; he awaits the 
sound of the footfalls of MacDuff and as Lenox says his young 
remembrance cannot parallel a fellow to the rough night, Mac- 
Duff sweeps in : 

"0, horror! horror! horror! Tongue nor heart 
Can not conceive nor name them!" 

The tragedy done during the rough night was made konwn. 
It was an adherence to the principle of unity that caused Shakespeare 

289 



to stage the scene between MacBeth and Lenox. The courteous 
reception given by the murderer of Duncan; to MacDuff and Lenox, 
his answer to the question of Lenox as to the going hence of the 
King on that day — that, "He did appoint so," the answer he had 
given his wife on his home coming from the cauldron of deviltry, all 
were units of action in harmony. So is the contrast between the 
language of the porter and of Lenox in their respective descriptions 
of the night in unison with the entire tragedy. It would not have 
been adherence to the principles of unity had MacDuff, of himself, 
found the body of Duncan, It was in adherence to the principles 
of unity that he should meet with MacBeth, calm and, apparently, 
undisturbed by the tragedy he had accomplished as the tool of his 
dominating wife. When MacDuff and Lenox have been admitted 
within the portals, MacBeth enters : 

MacDuff.— 

"Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?" 

MacBeth.— • 
"Not yet!" 

MacDuff.— 

"He did command me to call timely on him; 
I have almost slipped the hourl" 

MacBeth.— 

"I'll bring you to him." 

MacDuff.— 

"I know this is a joyful trouble to you; 
But yet, 'tis one." 

MacBeth.— 

"The labor we delight in physics pain! 
I'll bring you to him!" 

MacDuff.— 

"I'll make so bold to call, 
For 'tis my limited service!" 

Is not everything in that which I have quoted from the tragedy 
in keeping with the principles of unity — of coherence? The kindly, 
the youthful language of Lenox to his host, his superior in age and 
in position at the court of Duncan ; the labor of MacBeth in escorting 
MacDuff to the chamber of Duncan, knowing MacDuff would not 
accept it — every element of unity is there, Why not unity in the 
porter scene, even for the purpose of contrast? It is true there is 
hostility to the porter scene. It, like others, is a scene on which 



290 



some critics look with aversion, and it is not wholly a pleasnat scene 
but neither is the scene wherein we find MacBeth cringing with his 
bloody hands and giving to Lady MacBeth the dagger with which 
to smear the hands of the sleeping grooms. The one objection I 
hold to the porter scene is that it does not have the dialect of the 
Scot, neither Highland nor Lowland, which, though not appro- 
priate in the characters of the nobility, the educated, might rightly 
be on the tongue and lips of the servitors. It has in it the impatience 
of the Scotchman; his disposition to argue, as he would deem it, in 
querulous asking of questions so completely shown in the characters 
of Scott and we may well take it that the murmurings of the porter 
were designed by Shakespeare and had a direct purpose in them. 
The question, however, is whether there is violation of unity in it. 
No more than there is violation of unity in the scene with Lenox 
for while the language of the porter is of his class and station, there 
is in it a forecasting of the description of the storm which Lenox, 
gave to MacBeth. When the knocking comes the porter rouses 
from his drowsy slumberings and makes ready, no doubt a slow 
readiness, to open the gates. There have been knockings at the gate 
for some time. There were knockings at the gate while MacBeth 
was doing his bloody deed and while Lady MacBeth was doing the 
bloody deed of smearing the hands of the grooms. The knocking 
had been so persistent and so loud that MacBeth wishes it could 
wake Duncan. It was the knocking of MacDuff at the gates and 
if the sleepy porter had wakened when the first knocking came 
the bloody murder of Duncan might have been prevented — and 
then the tragedy would not have been accomplished as it had been 
planned. It is also to be remembered in considering the principle of 
unity in the porter scene that as Lenox told MacBeth of the terrors 
of the storm — the storm of the elements — the porter discourses of 
storm of crime while the elements were raging. There had been 
wassail during the night. The porter was not exempt from the 
effects of the drink Lady MacBeth had served not alone to the 
grooms but, unquestionably, to all the servitors in the castle. From 
the beginning of his grumblings until he opens the gates and admits 
MacDuff and Lenox there had been six time knockings and as he goes 
forth to his duty he says : 

Porter. — 

Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have 
old turning the key. (Knocking within.) Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' 
the name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged himself on the expectation 
of plenty: come in time; have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat for't. 
{Knocking within.) Knock, knock Who's there, in the other devil's name? 
Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either 



291 



scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate ta 
heaven: 0, come in, equivocator. {Knocking within.) Knock, knock, knock! 
Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for steaHng out of a 
French hose: come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose. {Knocking within.) 
Knock, knock; never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for 
hell. I'll devil-porter it no further; I had thought to have let in some of all 
professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. {Knocking 
within.) Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter. {Opens the gate.) 

MacDuff asks him was it late when he went to bed, that he was 
so late in rising and the answer of carousal through the night came 
from the porter. Therein is a showing of unity — a showing of the 
perfect arrangement of detail on the part of Lady MacBeth that 
there should be none in possession of sense sufficient to block her 
bloody path to the crown. But it is with the grumblings of the 
porter the question is most closely connected. 

In the time of the gathering of the clouds, preceding a storm, we 
look from the horizon to the zenith in search of one break giving us a 
glimpse of the blue sky, and we do not find one. The storm is at 
hand and havoc worked. All things deepen in the gloom, the rose 
not less than the weed, the blossom no less than green of the fields, 
and men and all Nature feels the darkening effects. Up to the time 
of the restoration of Malcolm to the throne there is not in all Mac- 
Beth one glimpse of a blue sky — a sky of peace to men of good will. 
All is darkness. One slight break comes with the expression of 
human grief in the wail of the women from the death bed of Lady 
MacBeth — but a greater and a more darkening cloud immediately 
covers the rift in the coming of Birnamwood to high Dinsinnane and 
the carrying of the head of MacBeth aloft to the presence of Malcolm. 
And so the porter, with his arraigning language plays his part in the 
tragedy and mars not its unity in any degree. ''Knock! Knock!" 
Never at quiet! ''Who's there, in the other devil's name? Faith 
here's an equivocator who could swear in both scales against either 
scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not 
equivocate to Heaven!" and again: "Knock! Knock! Never at 
quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell! I'll 
devil porter it up further! I had thought to have let in some of all 
professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire." 

Did the porter know of the tragedy done during the night? The 
Scotch are keen and quick in intellect — though careful in giving 
their judgment. If he did not know, did he suspect? If he did not 
suspect murder, least of all of Duncan, the King, did he not note the 
wassail and the preparations for some event of great weight? Whether 
he did or did not, it is evident from his grumblings and his arraign- 
ings of the night and pf the knocking, that he knew the general 



292 



tenor of life at the castle of MacBeth and that he knew the respective 
characters of MacBeth and of Lady MacBeth no doubt can exist. 
That which the servant of the wealthy, of the nobility, of the great 
and of the men not great but in high place, does not know of the 
inner workings of the home, is scarcely worth the knowing. There 
was, in the darkened mind of the porter an equivocator who had 
committed treason enough for God's sake, but who could not 
equivocate to Heaven. That describes MacBeth, even though the 
porter did not fully grasp the meaning of his thought. There was 
an equivocator who could swear in both scales against either scale — 
an equivocator to whom common honesty was as nothing and swore 
in both scales of justice against either scale as his ambitions might 
suggest or as opportunity might present itself. 

And the place was too cold for Hell! He was speaking of the 
castle of MacBeth. He was not generalizing and he would not 
devil porter any further. He knew of the men of all professions of 
his day and time, who went the primrose way to the everlasting 
bonfire — the men of high birth and station and the men of wealth, 
on the primrose path of life, the path of luxury and of pleasure and 
of objects attained, the broad path that leads to destruction ever- 
lasting. Such were the musings, the grumblings and the arraignings 
of the porter while the impatient MacDuff kept up his knocking. 
If he had been Brutus or Hamlet, we would have called them solilo- 
quies. Grumbling when the half wakened, half drunken porter is 
considered. And when he comes to the gate at last he falls like 
Claudius whose prayers went up to Heaven, while his thoughts re- 
mained on earth and with his earthly possessions obtained by blood. 
''Anon! Anon! I pray you remember the porter with a gratuity!" 

Whether he knew — a thing improbable ; whether he suspected — 
a thing possible, is a thing immaterial in considering the question of 
unity or violation of the principle. There were clouds everywhere 
that night. Lenox noted the terrors of the physical storm, and there 
had been lamentations in the air and screams coming from the 
clouds. Lenox did not know other than that his young remem- 
brance could not parallel a storm like unto it. If he could appre- 
ciate the lamentations and the screamings from the clouds as per- 
taining to the crime committed while the storm was raging, and he 
was from the Highlands where the mystic and the ghostly ruled, 
why should not the porter realize or know of the tragedy that had been 
done in order that he might be moved to his close description not 
alone of existing conditions, or to appreciation of the existence of 
one who had committed treason — as MacBeth had done that night — 
but who could not equivocate to Heaven for it, as MacBeth could 



293 



1 



not do when, while the knocking continued, was mourning that not \ 
all great Neptune's ocean could cleanse the blood stains from his ' 
hand — why should not the porter know, actually, of the tragedy? It 
was in the very atmosphere that night. Blood and treason; viola- j 
tions of loyalty to King and of hospitality to guest and violations of ; 
gratitude to a gentle and generous benefactor. \ 

I see no reason for attributing violation of the principle of unity \ 
in the porter scene. There is, rather, a strengthening of the principle 
and Shakespeare uses one of the lower class of Scottish men, a 
servitor, a porter, a menial and not a soldier to add strength to the i 
portrayal of the tragic scenes that night in the castle of MacBeth, 1 
just as he had used one of the higher classes, a youth, one of the s 
nobility and a soldier to tell MacBeth of the lamentations coming 
from the Heavens while the bloody killing of Duncan was being ac- | 
complished. The language of the porter is rough as pertained to \ 
his class in life; but it was forceful in description of men and things j 
he had seen and noted, and he saw all that, came to the castle during \ 
his hours of duty at the gate and he was tiring of his position; at ■ 
least he says so but that part of his grumblings may be passed over — \ 
when he was ready to open the gate he begged that he might not be 
forgotten. ! 

It is reported of Shakespeare that he said he had never blotted a j 
line, and that Ben Jonson — "Rare Ben Jonson" — expressed the wish 
that he had blotted a thousand. Had he blotted the thousand who i 
was there to have filled in the blotted spaces? Not one in his day \ 
nor in later days and objections there have been made to the porter j 
scene — but the porter scene, rude and rough though the language i 
may be, is no ruder nor any rougher than scenes to which no objec- ] 
tions are made. Ever there have been critics and iconoclasts and j 
ever there will be differences of opinion held and urged and argued J 
as to the meaning of passages in Shakespeare. Therein is one of the \ 
greatest possible tributes to his masterful and mastering genius; to 
his perfect grasp on the powers of expression and of persuasion; j 
his knowledge of men and of events. His characters are the subject ] 
of dispute. Some see good qualities in them while others judge the 
same qualities as base. Dr. Hudson is inclined to the opinion of c' 
womanliness in Lady MacBeth, because while looking at the sleeping 3 
Duncan she says: ''Had he not resembled my father, as he slept, I ] 
had don't." How much womanliness there was in her is shown i 
that, notwithstanding the resemblance to her father, she accom- | 
plishes the murder through her husband; she would not slay one | 
who brought memories of her father living, but she would have the ] 
slaying done by another, urged to the murder by her mad ambitions | 
and her craving for the crown of Scotland and the honors that would ■ 

294 



i 



follow its attainment. She was as guilty as MacBeth and more 
guilty than he. She was as cruel as MacBeth and more cruel. She 
would have plucked the nipple from the babe at her breast and 
dashed out its brains, before she would have halted and hesitated, 
as he was halting and hesitating, if she had sworn to do the bloody 
deed as he had done. There was no womanliness in her or, if there 
were any trait of it, Shakespeare does not show it. 

Neither can there be agreement with the description Dr. Hudson 
draws of the two when he thus writes of them, on page 345-6: 

''This guilty couple are patterns of conjugal virtue. A 
tender, delicate, respectful affection sweetens and dignifies 
their intercourse; the effect of which is rather heightened 
than otherwise by their ambition, because they seem to 
thirst for each other's honor as much as for their own. 
And this sentiment of mutual respect even grows by their 
crimes, since their inborn nature is developed through 
them. For they both sin heroically and they both suffer 

heroically, too And so manifest, withal, is their 

innate fitness to reign, that their ambition almost passes as 
the instinct of faculty for its proper sphere." 

No criticisms of that is necessary. It speaks for itself. They 
worked in blood and through blood and dishonor of all fundamentals 
of sound ethics to attain the crown. This might be added — If 
Dr. Hudson only knew it, he is planting himself on the foul and 
false principle that the end justifies the means. 



295 



WAS HAMLET MAD? 



AS Hamlet mad? Did Shakespeare intend so to 
portray him? Or was Hamlet merely a mooning 
character, subject to spasms of melancholy and 
was it the intention of Shakespeare to leave it to 
his readers and to the judgment of his audiences 
to debate within themselves the question, which 
disagreements of opinion have been held almost 
from the beginning? Study of the play will incline the thoughtful 
to the opinion that the character of the Melancholy Dane was por- 
trayed by Skakespeare without reference to the question of sanity 
or insanity and that later it occurred to him that his portrayal would 
bring about that which has come to pass — the continuous question 
of the madness of the man or whether he was merely indifferent to 
his surroundings and to events — letting things come and go as they 
would. The theory herein advanced is borne out by the change 
in the title of the play. It was registered at the Stationers, on 
July 26, 1602, the anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare, under 
the title: "The Revenge of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, as it was 
lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Servants." 

Revenge is neither sought nor brought about by the insane. 
Revenge is the result of an intention to injure another, even unto 
killing him, springing in a mind capable of plotting injury; under- 
standing and appreciating the motives which impel the plotting and 
carrying out the plotting in its details unto the end sought. 

One who is insane cannot plot revenge. He is one not respon- 
sible for his actions. The Divine law does not hold the insane to 
accountability. Neither does the law of man, and did not in any age 
and in any civilized country. Knowing the meaning of words and ap- 
preciating the drawing of the character and the greater thought men 
gave to words and their meanings and the impressions they carried 
with them, it is probable in the largest degree, that Shakespeare 
believed that judgment of insanity would be pronounced against 
Hamlet, the judgment to be carried to future generations and he 
changed the name. The three words: 'The revenge of," were 
stricken from the title and the tragedy has come down to us as: 
"Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." 




297 



That the story of Hamlet was known in England long before the 
days of Shakespeare — ages before it — is so far within the bounds of 
probability that it cannot be doubted. The Danes were masters 
of the seas in the olden times; they invaded England, conquered 
the northern portions and the Saxon and the Norman felt their in- 
fluence and their strength to their very frequent tribulation. The 
Danes were, and are, folk-lore people and the story of the melan- 
choly and the mooning Hamlet, his vacillations, his visions and the 
final results were carried with the Danes to England. In due time 
Shakespeare gathered them together, studied and analyzed them 
and gave to the world the tragedy not alone of the greatest possible 
human interest, but the tragedy over which there has been waged a 
contest of literature and of scientists over the question of sanity or 
insanity of the leading character. In a book written in the early 
days, and printed in the early years of the XVI. century it is 
written that: 

'*In those days the northern parts of the world, living under 
Satan's laws, were full of enchanters, so that there was not any 
young gentleman that knew not something thereof. And so Ham- 
let had been instructed in that devilish art whereby the wicked 
spirit abuseth mankind. It toucheth not the matter herein to dis- 
cover the parts of divination in man, and whether this Prince, by 
reason of his over great melancholy, had received those impressions, 
divining that which never any had declared before." 

The date of the manuscript of ''The History of Hamlet" is given 
1204 — certainly of venerable antiquity. Reading the extract 
quoted, Dr. Hudson, in his criticisms of Shakespeare, holds that: 
"The scene of the incidents is laid before the introduction of Chris- 
tianity into Denmark and when the Danish power held sway in 
England; further than this, the time is not specified," and he con- 
tinues: 'Tt is hardly necessary to add that Shakespeare makes the 
persons Christians, clothing them with the sentiments and manners 
of a much later period than they have in the play." 

Dr. Hudson is mistaken. Usually fair and impartial, it is diffi- 
cult for Dr. Hudson to bring himself to the belief of a Christianity 
preceding that of the Reformers. The Danes may not have been 
perfect models when they landed on the shores of England, took its 
greater parts over; founded and endowed monasteries and convents. 
Abbeys and priories — and they were not converted by the Saxon 
nor the Angles in England. They brought their Christianity and 
their rough methods with them. Undoubtedly he drew his foolish 
belief, or theory, from the statement in the ''History of Hamlet" 
that: "In those days the northern parts of the world, living then 
under Satan's laws, were full of enchanters," etc. But Satan is 

298 



never quiet. He is as far afield and as close at hand today — these 
Christian days — as he was in Denmark in the time of Hamlet. 
Shakespeare made them Christians in his tragedy, because they were 
Christians — though derelict in the doing of Christian duty. It is 
of interest to note that the author of 'The History of Hamlet," 
ascribes ' 'melancholy" — not insanity — to Hamlet and it is an added 
bit of testimony to the belief that Hamlet was not insane. He was 
moody and melancholy; capable of great actions and possessed of 
high ideals. But he did little, himself. He brought about tragic 
events, but only at the last did he participate in them. His ideals 
were subservient to his melancholy. He thought too much; too 
deeply and too incoherently. He has many — too many — like unto 
him in these later days; men who think and philosophise and ad- 
vance sound theories with no practical results. 

Many bad qualities have been attributed to Hamlet. It is 
written of him that he was cowardly. He was simply inactive. 
Others say of him that his intellect was too great for his will, and 
there can be agreement with that judgment. He was vacillating. 
Even the spirit of his father was obliged to rebuke him for delay. 
Undoubtedly he was lazy — at least he was given to putting off and 
to retirings into himself which made him forget the things that were 
to be done by him, or which it was expected and believed would 
be done by him. But in his private and in his public life he aimed 
at high and ethical ideas; he was kindly, moral and dignified. One 
other reference to the theory that Hamlet was insane, a madman and 
a lunatic, will be of interest as great as that aroused by the 
author of 'The History of Hamlet," Horatio, the intimate friend, 
companion and associate of the melancholy Prince endeavors to 
prevent him following of the ghost because the ghost may rob 
him of "sovereignty of reason and draw him into madness." 

Horatio knew Hamlet as no other knew him, and if he had be- 
lieved Hamlet to be mad, he would not have insisted that the ghost 
might draw him into madness, or depose his reason. And it is not 
the least proof of madness in Hamlet that, after his interview with the 
ghost — the spirit of his father — and after the revelations had been 
made to him that he exhibited a demeanor belonging to one whose 
reason was unsettled, or one who was, in fact, insane. Hamlet's 
reason had been unsettled by the revelations of the ghost and 
Shakespeare used the effective method of illustrating how deeply 
the interview with the ghost had influenced him. 

The ghost has appeared unto Horatio and Marcellus, as they 
stood guard upon the ramparts of the Castle of Elsinore. Bernardo, 
has not seen the apparition and Marcellus tells him that Horatio 
rates the story as being nothing but their fantasy, Bernardo be- 

299 



gins his story of how he and Marcellus had, on the preceding night, 
seen the ghost when he was interrupted by the entry of what he 
describes as ''In the same figure, Uke the King that's dead.'' Ho- 
ratio speaks to the Ghost but it makes no answer and goes away. 
Horatio is astounded and when, after a lengthy discussion of the 
apparition and its meaning, it comes again, Horatio determines 
that he will speak to it at all hazards. The three are determined to 
halt it — but it goes away when the cock crows "like a guilty thing," 
as Horatio expresses it with Marcellus, insisting that they were 
doing wrong to it, ''being so majestical, to offer it the show of vio- 
lence." The next introductory scene is on the entrance of the King, 
the Queen, Hamlet and Polonious, Laertes and their attendants. 

The King proceeds to state the greenness of the memory of their 
dear brother, Hamlet, the murdered King; announces his marriage 
with the widow — Hamlet's mother; announces his policies and 
makes assignment of duties to all but Polonious and Hamlet. The 
Queen, noting the sadness of Hamlet, prays him to cast "his nigh ted 
color off." 

"Do not, forever, with thy veiled lids 
Seek for thy noble father in the dust. 
Thou knows't 'tis common; that all that live must die — 
Passing through nature to eternity." 

Hamlet. — 

"Ay, madame — 'tis common!" 

The Queen. — 

"If it be so, why seems it so particular with thee?" 
Hamlet. — 

"Seems, madame! Nay, it is! I know not seems! 
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother; 
Nor customary suits of solemn black. 
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath; 
Nor in the dejected 'haviour of the visage; 
No — nor in the fruitful river in the eye, 
Together with all forms, modes, shapes of grief. 
That can denote me truly! These, indeed seem. 
For they are actions that a man might play; 
But I have that within which passeth show — 
These but the trappings and the suits of woe!" 

Then the murdering King vents eulogies on Hamlet, telling that 
it is sweet and commendable in his nature, to give these mourning 
duties to his father. But he must remember that if he has lost a 
father, so did his father lose a father, and asks him : 

"Why should we, in our peevish opposition 
Take it to heart?" 



300 



The love the murdered Hamlet bore to his son, is promised the 
son by the murderer of his father. He advises Hamlet against going 
back to Wittenberg; assures him of love and protection and that 
he stands nearest to the throne in all Denmark. Then comes the 
Queen again. 

"Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet! 
I pray thee stay with us — go not to Wittenberg." 

And Hamlet promises that he will do all in his best to obey her, 
and the King says : 

"Madame, come! 
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet 
Sits smiling in my heart! In grace whereof, 
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today 
But the great common to the clouds shall tell. 
Re-speaking earthly thunder! Come away!" 



Hamlet breaks out in his first soliloquy — soliloquising being but 
the means he took for giving vent to his feelings, instead of action. 
But his mind was not yet fully made up on the question of the means 
of the death of his father and he proceeds : 

"O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt! 
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! 
Or that the everlasting had not fixed, 
His cannon 'gainst self slaughter! 
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable 
Seem to me all the uses of this world! 
Fie on't! Ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden, 
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature 
Possess it merely that it should come to this! 
But two months dead; nay, not so much, not two; 
So excellent a King; that was, to this 
Hyperion to a satyr! So loving to my mother. 
That he might not beteem the winds of heav'n, 
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! 
Must I remember? Why she would hang on him 
As if increase of appetite had grown, 
By what it fed on — and yet, within a month — 
Let me not think on't! — Frailty, thy name is woman! 
A little month or o'er those shoes were old 
With which she followed my poor father's body, 
Like Niobe all tears: — why she, even she — 
O, God! A beast that wants discourse of reason 
Would have mourned longer — married with my uncle! 
My father's brother; but no more like my father 
Than I to Hercules; within a month 
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears 



301 



Had left the flushing in her galled face, 
She married! 

It is not, nor can it come to good; 

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue " 



The quotations are lengthy, but necessary. The Ghost of Ham- 
let's father has appeared to Horatio and to Marcellus on the ram- 
parts of the Castle where King Claudius, the murderer, would 
not appear, but where the youthful friends of Hamlet, the son, 
would be and the ghost would not speak to them nor to any of them. 
It knew that Horatio would tell of the apparition to Hamlet and it 
knew Hamlet would be in waiting on the next night. The secret 
the ghost would impart to Hamlet was, even then, growing to con- 
viction in Hamlet's mind. His melancholy operated against the 
quicker work of conviction that would have come to a man of action. 
His demeanor, his entire manner, showed his breast filled with 
suspicions as his mother talks to him and he to her. It is not alone 
his inky cloak, nor customary suits of solemn black; nor windy 
suspiration of forced breath, that caused his gloom. They were but 
actions that a man might play — and he was only not playing, but 
within him there was deep thought of how the tragedy of the death of 
his father had been brought about. The King, taking little heed 
of Hamlet's abilities, does not, apparently, credit him with having 
suspicions of the real facts. But it is plain that his mother has her 
misgivings. The King, in his brutality, asks Hamlet why he should 
stand in peevish opposition to death — the common lot of all! But 
his mother dreads him. She places her hand lovingly on his shoulder 
and prays him that his mother may not lose her prayers. She 
wanted ever to have Hamlet near unto her and to be near unto him. 
The conscience of the woman, not hardened like unto that of the 
man who had murdered his brother that he might take the crown 
of Denmark unto himself, was troubled. 



When they leave Hamlet, his innermost nature breaks out in his 
soliloquy. His arraignment of the King; Hyperion to a Satyr; 
his arraignment of his mother, far more bitter than that of the King: 
'That it should come to this." So excellent a King that he might 
not beteem the winds of Heaven play on her cheek too roughly. 
One like unto his son, as his son was like unto him. And it had 
come to this! It was not, and it could not come to good, but let his 
heart break, for he held his tongue! Why so? He knew his defects 

302 



of character. He knew his inactivity; he knew his melancholy 
and he feared that if he gave any voice to his feelings he would 
betray himself and that the vengeance which he would seek, or 
believed he would seek, would be lost to him. Shakespeare at the 
very outset, in the first soliloquy of Hamlet, portrays his character- 
istics, his deep feeling ofl ove for his father; his unwillingness, if it 
were possible, to lay the dreadful blame on his mother; his sudden 
outburst of indignation over her conduct. All of it is unexcelled. 
The reader is given to know the characteristics of the principal 
character, on whom devolved the duty, as the age in which Hamlet 
lived, forced on him, of avenging the murder of his father and the 
wiping of the stain from the 'scutcheen of Denmark. We see his 
vacillation in the soliloquy; his wish that he too might be taken — 
that his too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and dissolve itself into 
a dew. But the man within him awakened again and he must let 
his heart break if it would — but he must hold his tongue. 

Appropriate it is that with the silencing of his tongue his friends 
come on the scene. Horatio, always dear to his heart as he shows 
in his answer to the salutation : ''I am glad to see you well, Horatio, 
or I do forget myself" and Hamlet was ever present to himself, 
especially in his willing acknowledgment to himself of his faults — 
not the faults of cowardice, but of indecision. And there is a lesson 
in his life of indecision worthy of study and worth, also of suggestion 
of avoidance to the young men and the young women of today, not 
necessarily with reference to Hamlet but as a general proposition. 

Horatio proceeds to tell Hamlet that he had come from Witten- 
berg to attend his father's funeral and there is a stirring in the heart 
of Hamlet. ''I pray thee do not mock me, fellow-student. I think 
it was to see my mother's wedding," and when Horatio admits ''it 
followed hard upon," there comes the other bitter denunciation that 
it was for thrift. 'Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats 
did coldly furnish forth the marriage feast." He is holding his 
tongue in that — and he says he thinks he sees his father, but it is 
in his mind's eye! His father! A man, take him for all in all, he 
ne'er would look upon his like again. Horatio tells of the visit 
of the ghost of Hamlet's father and Hamlet's very soul 
quivers. He is told the details. His soul at once grasps the fact 
that the visit was to him and he begs them, as he had reseolved to 
do, to be silent as to the visit if they had not spoken of it to others. 

In the meantime Laertes warns Ophelia to be careful of Hamlet, 
for his will is not his own, with Polonius entering. Shakespeare 
makes use of him in that magnificent bit of advice to which Laertes 
listens with all reverence, as all men should today: 



303 



i 

! 
I 

Polonius. — 5 
"There, my blessing with thee! 
And these few precepts in thy memory. 

See thou character? Give thy thoughts no tongue \ 

Nor any unproportioned thought his act! j 

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar, \ 

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, | 

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel. \ 

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment, I 

Of each new hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware \ 

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in i 

Bear't within thee that the opposed may beware of thee. | 

Give every man thy ear but few thy voice; i 

Take each man's censure but reserve thy judgment. 1 

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy j 

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; 1 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man. i 
And they in France of the best rank and station 

Are of a most select and generous chief in that. ; 
Neither a borrower or a lender be; . . j 

For a loan oft loses both itself and friends, ] 

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. j 

This above all: to thine own self be true, 1 
And it must follow as the night the day 

Thou canst not then be false to any man. ] 

Farewell; my blessing season this in thee." ; 

In the meantime Hamlet and Horatio, with Marcellus, go upon : 

the ramparts of the castle and the ghost comes. ; 

Hamlet exclaims. — i 

"Angels and ministers of grace, defend us." \ 

"Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, bring .• 

With thee heirs from heaven of blasts from hell, j 
Be thy intents wicked or charitable. 
Thou comest in such a questionable shape 
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet, 

King, father, royal Dane; O answer me ; ■ 
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell 
Why thy canonized bones hearsed in death 

Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre I 

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned l 
Hath oped its ponderous and marble jaws 
To cast thee up again. 

Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do? ' 

j 

The ghost tells him the details of the bloody, shocking story of 
the murder. No dissuasions of his friends could deter him from 

following the ghost. It was the ghost of his father. ''Doomed ; 

for a time to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fire, ,! 

'till the foul deeds done in my days of Nature, are burned and purged "] 

304 ; 



away." In that sentence there is the plain and the unmistakable 
belief in Purgatory — another showing that the incidents of the trag- 
edy were not before the Christianizing of Denmark, but after. 
That Hamlet, as shown in his interview with his uncle and his 
mother, in which she had besought him not to go back to Witten- 
berg, had strong belief in the guilt of his uncle, if not of his mother, 
is evidenced by his answer to the ghost as the bloody story pro- 
ceeded: ''0, my prophetic soul! My uncle." With the parting 
between them over, Hamlet returns in the direction of the place 
where he had left Horatio and his friends. He will not tell them. 
He is still convinced of the wisdom of keeping silence, at least with 
Marcellus, although he will tell Horatio later. In response to the 
anxious questioning of Horatio, he assumes an air of confidential 
discourse and tells Horatio that: 'There's ne'er a villian dwelling 
in all Denmark but is an arrant knave." Horatio responds that it 
needed no ghost come from the grave to tell him that and to Ham- 
let's further talk, Horatio tells him that it is but wild and foolish. 
It was, of a verity. But the seriousness of that which he believed 
his duty comes back to him and he asks one favor — never to reveal 
that which they had seen that night. He asks them to swear to 
it — and from the deep silence there comes the voice of the ghost. 
''Swear," and the oath is taken, and vacillating Hamlet enters on 
his work of vengeance. The time is out of joint, he tells his friends 
and "cursed spite, that he was ever born to set it right!" 

Was Hamlet insane? No! But his vacillation again takes firm 
grip upon him. Days pass and nothing is done by him to avenge 
the murder of his father. But at length there come the players to 
Elsinore and Hamlet's wit returns to him. Through them he can 
find whether the guilt of his uncle is a guilt established. His earliest 
suspicions are forgotten. The story the ghost told him on the Castle 
ramparts is overlooked! He must have proof positive, and he stages 
the play through the acting of which he will be enabled to determine 
finally the question of guilt or of innocence. As with all vacillators, 
he hesitated. To plan was an easy thing for him. To act was 
something of the abnormal and he gives vent to his other soliloquy — 
the soliloquy unexcelled even by Shakespeare in any other of his 
plays. It is the soliloquy which, with perfection of art, describes 
Hamlet as he was at all times and under all circumstances. 

Hamlet.— 

"To be or not to be. That is the question. 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end them? To die; to sleep 
305 



No more; and by a sleep to say we end 

The heartaches and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep; 

To sleep; perchance to dream; Aye, there's the rub; 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil 

Must give us pause; there's the respect 

That makes calamity of so long life. 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 

The pangs of despised love, the laws delay, 

The insolence of office and the spurs 

That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 

When he himself might his quietus make 

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear 

To groan and sweat under weary life, 

But that the dread of something after death. 

The undiscovered country from whose bourn 

No traveler returns, puzzles the will 

And makes us rather bear the ills we have 

Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; 

And thus the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought 

And enterprises of great pith and moment 

With this regard their currents turn awry 

And lose the name of action — soft you now! 

The fair Opheha Nymph in thy orisons 

Be all my sins remembered." 

Later the play which is to bring forth the evidence he wanted, 
but did not need, is staged. The poison is poured into the ear of the 
sleeping player, personating the king. The murdering King flees 
from the scene with his crimes upon his head and Hamlet rejoices 
hysterically — but he does nothing. His mother sends for him and 
he responds to her call, with, possibly, the most dramatic and 
rhetorical scene of all, following. 

She tells him that he has much offended his father, meaning the 
the King who had murdered his father and Hamlet answers: "Moth- 
er, you have my father much offended." The Queen complains 
that he answers her with an idle tongue, to which he answers that 
she is questioning him with a wicked tongue. The Queen asks if 
he has forgotten her, and Hamlet answers : ''No! By the reed not so 

"You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife. 
And — would it were not so! You are my mother!" 

Threatening that she would send for those that could speak to 
him, Hamlet bids her sit down and tells her she shall not budge 
until he had set up a glass wherein she could see the innermost parts 

306 



of herself. She cries for help and Polonius, behind the curtain, 
joins in her cry. Hamlet draws his sword professing to believe he 
had heard a rat and kills Polonius, The Queen denounces it as a 
rash and bloody deed, and Hamlet answers: 

''A bloody deed! Almost as bad good mother as kill a King and 
marry with his brother." 

The Queen : 

"As kill a King?" 

Hamlet: 

"Ay, lady, 'twas my word." 

Dragging Polonius in the presence of his mother and bitterly 
reviling him as a wretched, rash intruding fool whom he had taken 
for his better, that is for the King, Hamlet is brought to task by the 
Queen who asks him. What has she done that he should dare to 
wag his tongue in noise so rude against her. He tells her. He asks 
her to look upon the picture of his father and of his father's murderer 
and as an illustration of description, it is given here: 
"See what a grace was seated on this brow; 

Hiperians curls; the front of Jove himself! 

An eye like Mars to threaten and command; 

A station like the herald Mercury 

New lighted on a heaven kissing hill; 

A combination and a form indeed 

Where every God did seem to set his seal 

To give the world assurance of a man. 

This was your husband. Look you now what follows! 

Here is your husband; like a mil-dewed ear 

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? 

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed 

And batten on this moor? Ah, have you eyes? 

You can not call it love for at your age 

The hey-day in the blood is tame. It's humble 

And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment 

Would step from this to this? Sense, sure you have. 

Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense 

Is apoplexed; for madness would not err, 

Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thralled 

But it reserve some quantity of choice. 

To serve in such a difference. What devil was it 

That thus hath cozended you at hoodman-blind? 

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight. 

Ears without hands or eyes, smeUing sans all. 

Or but a sickly part of one true sense 

Could not so mope, 

O shame Where is thy blush? RebelHous hell. 
If thou can'st mutine in a matron's bones 
And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame 
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge 
Since frost itself as actively doth burn 
And reason panders ill," 



Hamlet continues in his bitter arraignment of his mother until 
the ghost of his father enters. When his mother hears him speak, 
she fears that he has gone mad and Hamlet asks: 

"Do you not come your tardy son to chide 
That, lapsed in time and passion lets go by 
The important acting of your dread command?" 

—The Ghost.— 

"Do not forget; this visitation 
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose 
But look, amazement on thy mother sits 
Oh, step between her and her fighting soul, 
Speak to her Hamlet." 



308 



THE QUESTION OF A CLIMAX. 



NE of the class, after the lecture of Friday, asked 
whether the climax — the rhetorical climax — of the 
tragedy of Hamlet was to be found in the oppor- 
tunity presenting itself for killing of Claudius 
while on his knees, in prayer — the hypocrite! — or 
in the catching of the conscience of the King. 
What is a climax? Webster defines it as: '*A 
figure or arrangement in which a sentence rises as it were step by 
step in importance, force or dignity." His second definition is: 
'The highest point; the greatest degree." 

His definition is applicable to an element or to a feature, in a 
drama or in a tragedy — arising, step by step, in importance, force 
or dignity. It would not have been appropriate ; it would not have 
been rhetorical, to have forced, or based, the climax in a scene 
wherein the characteristic of the Melancholy, and the Mooning, 
Dane is so clearly portrayed in his *'now I might do it" and in his 
wonder whether Claudius was fit and seasoned for his passage to 
eternity. Would he be venged by taking his life at a time Claudius 
was wholly unprepared? And he thinks of his mother. It is she 
who stays his hand and prolongs the sickly days of Claudius. Vacil- 
lating, hesitating and inactive — is there anything of a climax in 
Hamlet? Anything indicating his intention to be up and doing? 
After the play; after Claudius rises and flees because his conscience 
has been caught, there is no mooning in Hamlet; there is wild re- 
joicing. His mind is now forever at rest so far as the confirmation 
of the story of the ghost is concerned. Then and there was the 
climax, brought to its conclusion in the fifth act, presented most 
perfectly by Shakespeare. 

Claudius, declaring that his offense is rank and smells to Heaven, 
makes full confession of the murder of his brother, remorseful as 
MacBeth was for the murder of Duncan, as he, like Claudius, con- 
fesses his shameless murder. 

"O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; 
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, . 
A brother's murder. Pray can I not, 
Though inclination be as sharp as will: 
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent ; 
And, like a man to double business bound, 
I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 
309 




And both neglect. What if this cursed hand 

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, 

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens 

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy 

But to confront the visage of offence? 

And what's in prayer but this two-fold force, 

To be forestalled ere we come to fall, 

Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up; 

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer 

Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'? 

That can not be; since I am still possess'd 

Of those effects for which I did the murder. 

My crown, mine own ambition and my queen. 

May one be pardon'd and retain the offence? 

In the corrupted currents of this world 

Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice. 

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 

Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above; 

There is no shuffling, there the action lies 

In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd. 

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults. 

To give in evidence. What then? What rests? 

Try what repentance can: what can it not? 

Yet what can it when one can not repent? 

O wretched state! O bosom black as death! 

O lined soul, that, struggling to be free, 

Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay, 

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel, 

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe! 

All may be well. {Retires and kneels.) 

There is his full and most complete confession. The remorse 
stricken, not the conscience stricken murderers, MacBeth and 
Claudius, and the accessory and prime mover Lady MacBeth, see, 
at the last, the evil of their ways, fearing the punishments due unto 
them and unto each of them. There was not water enough in Nep- 
tune's ocean to wash the stains from the bloody hand of MacBeth; 
not all the perfumes of Araby could remove the stain from the little 
hand of his wife ; the attendant tells the physician she is ever wash- 
ing her hands — but the stain will not out and her mourning is for the 
loss of symmetry or the loss of physical beauty of her little hand. 
Not one word of the future; neither remorseful nor conscience 
stricken was either. With Claudius, however, it is due to say, there 
was some grain of remorse or of a stricken conscience. He does not 
repent, but he recognizes his fault. He does not appeal to the per- 
fumes of Araby, nor does he assert there was not enough water in 
great Neptune's ocean to wash the stain from his hand as MacBeth 
and Lady MacBeth did. He recognizes the coming of mercy to the 



310 



sinner repenting — possibly having the Penitent Thief in his mind 
and he asks: 

"What if this cursed hand, 
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, 
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens, 
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy 
But to confront the visage of offence? 
And what's in prayer but this two fold force 
To be forestalled eer we come to fall, 
Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up. 
My fault is past. But 0, what form of prayer 
Can serve my turn"? 

He looks to the rain of Heaven; not the ocean of Neptune. 
He recognizes the force of prayer in the resistence to temptation, or 
for pardon after the fall. But what prayer can he use? Is it to ask 
pardon for his foul murder? That would be of no avail, for he still 
retains possession of the things, the property and the emoluments 
and the crown, each and all the property of his brother. But he 
will go and pray — ^his question had made a coward of him. He 
portrays his crime in his expression that if the blood upon his hand 
were thicker than the hand itself, was there not rain enough in 
sweet Heaven to wash it out? There is a marked contrast in the 
scene under consideration, between Claudius and MacBeth and 
Lady MacBeth — two of the tragedy of blood and one of the tragedy 
of treachery. There is a comparison, a similarity, rather, between 
Claudius in his appreciation of the fact that there was rain enough 
in sweet Heaven to wash out the stain upon his hand. Therein he 
appreciates to the fullest that exquisitely Christian, exquisitely 
beautiful and touching address of Portia to Shylock wherein she 
tells him: 'The quality of mercy is not strained." 

Incidentally, the consideration of the soliloquy of Claudius, in 
itself and of itself, shows the incorrectness of the view of Dr. Hudson 
that the tragedy of Hamlet was staged for a time prior to the Chris- 
tianizing of Denmark. It shows more — it shows the fact that 
Shakespeare was a Catholic. There is no despair in Claudius. He 
knows the quality of mercy is not strained; he knows that prayer 
is the effective weapon against temptation and the sure road to 
pardon after the fall. Claudius prays but does not repent. Had 
he repented the tragedy of treachery could not have been written. 
But he retires and kneels in prayer and Hamlet enters: 

Hamlet. — 

"Now Might I do it pat, now he's praying; 
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven; 
And so I am revenged. That would be scann'd: 
A villain kills my father; and for that, 



311 



I, his sole son, do this same villain send 
To heaven. 

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. 

He took my father grossly, full of bread; 

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; 

And how his audit stands who knows save heaven? 

But in our circumstance and course of thought 

'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged, 

To take him in the purging of his soul. 

When he is fit and season' d for his passage? 

No! 

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent: 

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, 

Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed; 

At gaming, swearing, or about some act 

That has no relish of salvation in't; 

Then trip him, that his geels may kick at heaven, 

And that his soul may be as damn'd and black 

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays: 

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days." (Exit.) 

King. (Rising.) — 

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: ' 
Words without thoughts never to heaven go." (Exit.) 

That is Hamlet to perfection, or in perfection! Now he might 
do it! The King is on his knees. After his perfect recognition of the 
unstrained quahty of mercy he prays — or thinks he prays. The 
opportunity was Hamlet's. The King was deeply thinking, on his 
knees, not praying and that his thoughts were so deep as to preclude 
the probability of his hearing the approach of Hamlet, who would 
have gone forward on tiptoe, if he had gone at all, and the stab of a 
dagger could have been accomplished and with it the avenging of 
the murder of his father. But, like unto him, he had to think about 
it ; he really does not think it would be right to take him when he 
was asking for mercy, as Hamlet thought he was. So it is as usual : 
"Up sword,'' that is, let me put off this avenging duty laid upon me. 
If the inaction of Hamlet had turned to action and Claudius had 
met his fate while on his knees, there would have been the climax 
of the tragedy then and there. But the climax did not come until 
the fifth act. And can there be any one to say that it came from the 
kneeling and the praying of Claudius? He had frankly confessed 
to himself, before bending his knees that pardon was not for him, 
nor mercy, while he held to the things he had attained by the foul 
murder of his brother. The insincerity of his prayer, or the shallow- 
ness of his remorseful or his conscience stricken soul is shown in his 
equally frank confession on arising of holding fast to his unlawfully 
gained properties. 

"My words fly up; my thoughts remain below; 
Words without thoughts never to heaven go." 



312 



He goes out and where is Hamlet? He has gone from the apart- 
ment before Claudius rises. He might have done it; but he did not. 
There was an object in it all, as Shakespeare shows. The conscience 
of the King! Claudius rises. If the climax is to be found in the 
scene under consideration Hamlet threw it away, or abandoned it 
before the King arose from his attitude of prayer. He might do it; 
he could do it pat; but he did not. His mind reverts to the criminal 
life of Claudius and it would be terrible to send him to judgment 
unshriven; and would the killing of Claudius in his sins, unshriven, 
really accomplish his vengeance. All this goes in his mind and at 
last he forgets his dread of the judgment Heaven would pass upon 
his murderous uncle and says that it is his mother who is saving his 
life. It is Hamlet as we have known him, throughout. There was 
an object in it all as Shakespeare magnificently shows, as he cer- 
tainly shows no climax nor even the germ of a climax in the prayer 
of the King nor in the recitation of what might be done unto him. 

"The play's the thing," says Hamlet, after one of his soliliquies. 
The conscience of the King was to be caught by it — not by the 
opportunity Hamlet had and of which he did not avail himself and 
as he had avoided always and would continue to do until the play 
was staged. 

When that has been done and the poison poured into the ear of 
the sleeping Gonzago, the conscience of the King has been so firmly 
caught and bound that not even the halting Hamlet can overlook it. 

It is done! It will be action for him when the time for action 
comes, as it will come, and as all things necessary come in the works 
of Shakespeare through his keen and perfect appreciation of the 
principle of coherence and his rhetorical appliance of it. 

The ghost becomes no longer the possibility of being a damned 
thing. After the play and the flight of guilty Claudius from the 
scene Hamlet is all exuberance; he would willingly take the ghost's 
word for a thousand pounds; he had succeeded in wringing from 
Claudius an open confession of his guilt as the conscience of the King 
had moved him to confess while on his knees, unaware of the presence 
of Hamlet. There is other proof of the mistaken view that the climax 
is in the scene of prayer and continued unrepentance. One other 
will be sufficient. The play is on. Hamlet asks his mother: 
''Madame, how like you this play?" Gertrude answers that she 
thinks that the lady doth protest too much. ''But she'll keep her 
word," answers Hamlet, and the guilty Claudius begins to fear a 
trap has been set for him. 

King.— 

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't? 

313 



Hamlet. — 

No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world. 
King.— 

What do you call the play? 
Hamlet. — 

The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a 
murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name: his wife, Baptista: you 
shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o' that? Your majesty 
and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our 
withers are unwrung. 

To a class of the high grade, the study, the thought and the 
quality of analysis of the Summer School of Cedar Grove, the matter 
may be submitted without further presentation. The chmax is not 
in the scene wherein Claudius confesses his guilt unto himself and 
drops to his knees, while Hamlet proceeds to outline a program of 
that which he might do but not one particular of which grows to 
action. The climax comes from the scene wherein the conscience of 
the King is caught through the staging of the play of the murder 
of Gonzago through poison poured into his ear. 



314 



WHAT MAY WE GIVE OUR PUPILS? 




U^N MY lecture of yesterday on the meaning to be 
conveyed by Lowell in the lines selected by the 
teacher in the second High, and the impulses 
moving her to read them to her class and to com- 
ment on them when Lowell, even in the Vision of 
Sir Launfal, furnished lines of rhetorical merit, I 
told the class that what I said merely conveyed 
my own best judgment and that the membership of the class was 
free to take an opposite view. 

After the lecture, several of the class expressed the opinion that 
my criticism was too severe on Lowell. Others stated their con- 
currence with the opinion I had expressed and a third asked the 
important question, ''What, then can we give our pupils?" It is 
a far-reaching question. One of the class suggested Father Tabb's 
poems, and a better suggestion could not have been made. There 
are other writers of poetry, however, than Father Tabb, though few, 
if any, maintaining as he did in all his writings that wonderful 
elevation of the soul, of heart, of mind and of true poetic genius 
possessed and used by Father Tabb. Aubrey de Vere is another 
poet whose works can be given to your pupils in the schools. Some 
of the poems of Eleanor C. Donnelly are perfect as poems can be 
perfect. Some are exceedingly eligible for the waste basket — but 
there is a Catholicity throughout her writings and you can give the 
poems of Jack Appleton with complete safety to your pupils. He is 
sincere and true; he is pure and high-minded throughout and 
nothing could be more appealing and nothing more holding than his 
"Mother Faith." 

I willingly concede the beauties of Sir Launfal. I am willing to 
bow in admiration before the perfectly classic language of Lowell in 
the poem. It is not difficult for me to remember, in reading the 
poem, that Lowell was writing in an atmosphere of Puritanism. 
There can be no question made of the deserved tribute paid him by 
the University of Glasgow in tendering him the Provostship of the 
venerable seat of learning. I do not question his high-mindedness 
and it is recorded of him that his works of charity were many and 
not blazoned to the world as the so-called charities of the Carnegies 
and the Rockefellers are blazoned. Conceding these qualities to 
Lowell and conceding other good and manly qualities to him — what 
of it all? 

315 



We are not judging Lowell as the man, but as the poet, the 
effective user of words and phrases and, therefore, the effective Mater 
of rhetoric. And is Lowell to be judged less harshly, or less in keep- 
ing with the rules of rhetoric simply because he was possessed of good 
qualities of mind and heart and brain? I noticed with regret the 
evidences in some of the Sisters who thought my criticisms were 
harsh, a feeling that an idol had fallen, or was in danger of falling 
from the high pedestal on which he stood in their opinions. Throw 
the blame on the Sister who submitted the question as to the mean- 
ing of Lowell in order, as she expressed it, that the pupil might be 
able to convey to the teacher the right meaning of the author of 
Sir Launfal. The question was asked and was rightly asked in all 
points involved. It was a question that will not pass from the minds 
of the class, especially in view of the pathetic question: ''What, 
then may we give our pupils?" 

We must judge the meaning of any writing, prose or poem, by 
the entire work, and never by any single extract. The delight of 
non-believers is in taking extracts from the Sacred Scriptures, 
ignoring the context and thereby proving — to their own satisfaction 
— ^the folly of belief in the Scriptures. 'The fool saith in his heart, 
there is no God.'' And the other fool takes the words: "There is 
no God," ignoring the fact that the blasphemy was uttered by the 
fool and the scoffer proves thereby whatever happens to strike his 
fancy. It was a pleasure to me, and an instructive pleasure, when I 
read the question. So is the discussion that has arisen from the 
question — but we must view the entire matter from the standpoint 
of right usages of the principles of fair criticism and to do that we 
must take the entire verse in which the objectionable, or the ques- 
tioned, lines appear in forming a right judgment. 

The lines submitted by the Sister were, in themselves, sufficient 
in my view to show that the point the author desired to emphasize 
was the charge of a fee by the confessor coming to shrive us. But 
the fairness demanded a reading of the Vision of Sir Launfal and the 
meaning of the organist gave the right starting point. Then came 
the lines: 

"At the devil's booth all things are sold, 
An ounce of dross for an ounce of gold." 

And we concede, willingly and completely, the wonderful effective- 
ness of the two lines? What does the devil have upon the counter 
in his booth? Nothing but dross and even the dross is doled out in 
exceedingly small quantities when we consider the great price paid 
per ounce. An ounce of gold is demanded and an ounce of gold is of 
value. It is a great illustration of the art of rhetoric and of the 



316 



ability of Lowell to use it. A volume could be written on the mean- , 

ing embodied in the two lines. And then we go back to the lines first ] 

submitted and to them we add the two hues just quoted and the 1 

meaning is made plain, with the meaning of rhetoric, emphasizing ] 

it. I will not repeat the meaning I have ascribed to the lines. | 

Neither will I ask those who do not coincide with me in my inter- j 

pretation to change their opinions immediately. But I do ask them ] 

to study the four Hnes first, then to add to them the two concluding ] 

lines quoted and form their best judgment, I am satisfied that the \ 

final judgment will be in concurrence with my interpretation. And \ 

all this is said with appreciation of the admiration for the Vision of J 

Sir Launfal — but judge his meaning by the rules of the art of rhetoric j 

as all writings and as all writers must be judged so far as the educa- ] 

tional feature is involved. When it comes to the Faith I need to say ] 
nothing. It would be presumptious or, if not presumptuous, wholly 
unnecessary for me to dictate to the membership of the class at 

Cedar Grove. '{ 

And then comes the question: "What, then may we give our 
pupils?" It is a serious question. 

"When there is unity of action in and among the Catholics of the 

United States; when the Catholic press is supported as it should be ; 

supported; when Cathohc authors receive the encouragement they ; 

deserve, then there will be no question of what you may give your ; 

pupils. The lack of genuine wholesome, attractive, interesting and \ 
effective Catholic writers and of books which not only can be given 

with safety but with pleasure to your pupils, but with interest aroused 'l 

in them, is due, in the very largest degree to the lack of unity of \ 

encouragement in and among the Catholic citizenship. ] 

What then may you give your pupils? You may give them the I 

Vision of Sir Launfal as a study in rhetoric. You may give it to ' 
them as illustrating the beauty of poetic composition. But when 

you give it to them, must you not warn them against the slander ■ 

on the Church and the priesthood and especially against the insidious, 1 

the insidiously beautiful, attack on the Last Supper as nothing but a ' 
dream? Would it not be your duty to warn them against the 

rhetoretically expressed heresy that the Holy Grail did not hold the ; 

Blood of Christ, but that the Grail consisted only in kindliness and ; 

in charity, or as Lowell puts it: ; 

"The Holy Supper is kept indeed j 

In what so we share with another's need." | 

Sisters, judge the Vision of Sir Launfal from the rhetorical j 

standpoint and there will be slight difference, if any, between your j 

views and mine. Then study what is involved in the rhetorical \ 

317 \ 



■i 



elements of the poem. Then think over what the real meaning of 
Lowell was. Having done that, judge of the effect his lines might 
have, and in many cases would have, on the minds of the younger 
generation. While there is practical submission to the beauties of 
the writers of attacks on the Catholic Church the attacks will con- 
tinue. When we give the roses to the child without warning against 
the thorn is it not likely that injury may result? 



We have studied Dickens and his Tale of Two Cities, with allu- 
sions to Thackeray and the question as to right depiction of the 
scenes and incidents is due. In Ivanhoe, the Jew plays a part most 
prominent, in the person of Isaac of York, the money lender and in 
the person of Rebecca, his daughter. In the last chapter of Ivanhoe, 
the parting between Rebecca and Rowena, the going of the Jew 
from England practically summarizes the entire plot of Ivanhoe. 
Prince John had disappeared ; Richard the lion-hearted was in his 
rightful place, Ivanhoe and Rowena were married and the rule of the 
Norman was unquestionable and to be unquestioned. Rebecca, 
for whom all readers of the novel hold most profound respect and 
sympathy, not only because of her heroic qualities, her fearlessness 
her womanliness, and her devotion to her father, but because of her 
love for Ivanhoe and her knowledge that marriage between the 
Gentile and Jew, the Christian knight with the Hebrew maiden, 
was impossible, is arrested on the charge of witchcraft and but one 
possibility of escape from death is given to her — the possibility that 
some Christian knight might be found to do battle for her in the 
lists of Templestowe. With her womanliness retarding her; with her 
love for her father and for her people urging her; with her knowledge 
that Ivanhoe loved Rowena and that they would be married and her 
own life a blank; with the pride of the Hebrew maiden and with 
her knowledge of the contempt in which she and her race were held 
in England ; with her life before her and the possibilities of good she 
might bring to the suffering among her peoples, Rebecca writes to 
her father: 

''To Isaac, the son of Adonian, whom the Gentiles 
call Isaac of York, peace and the blessing of the promise be 
multiplied unto thee! My father, I am as one doomed to die 
for that which my soul knoweth not — even for the crime of 
witchcraft. My father, if a strong man can be found to do 
battle for my cause with sword and spear, according to the 
customs of the Nazarenes, and that within the lists of Tem- 



318 



plestowe, on the third day from this time, peradventure 
our Fathers' God will give him strength to defend the 
innocent, and her who hath none to help her. But if this 
may not be, let the virgins of our people mourn for me as for 
one cast off, and for the heart that is stricken by the hunter, 
and for the flower which is cut down by the scythe of the 
sower. Wherefore look now what thou doest, and whether 
there by any rescue? One Nazarene warrior might indeed 
bear arms in my behalf, even Wilfred, son of Cedric whom 
the Gentiles call Ivanhoe. But he may not yet endure 
the weight of his armor. Nevertheless, send the tidings 
unto him, my father, for he hath favor among the strong 
men of his people, and as he was our companion in the 
house of bondage he may find some one to do battle for 
my sake. And say unto him, even unto him, even unto 
Wilfred, the son of Cedric, that if Rebecca live, or if 
Rebecca die, she liveth or dieth wholly free of the guilt 
she is charged withal. And if it be the will of God that thou 
shalt be deprived of thy daughter, do not thou tarry, old 
man, in this land of bloodshed and cruelty, but betake 
thyself to Cordova, where thy brother liveth in safety, 
under the shadow of the throne, even of the throne of 
Boabdil the Sacacene; for less cruel are the cruelties of 
the Moors unto the race of Jacob, that the cruelties of the 
Nazarenes of England." 

The letter of Rebecca, for whom all readers of Ivanhoe have the 
deepest sympathy, plainly and pathetically foreshadows the parting 
scene between herself and Rowena. Scott knew and admirably 
portrayed that undying respect, esteem and love which the child 
of the Jew bears to the parent. Her first thought in all her agony 
is for her father and for the coming and the multiplying of the 
blessings of the promise upon him. And then there is, in the first 
sentence, the essential point — the WHAT of effective writing. 
Then, with her thoughts on Ivanhoe whom she had nursed to life 
if not to complete strength, she asks her father if a strong man could 
be found to do battle for her cause ''with sword and spear," accord- 
ing to the custom of the Nazarenes, hoping that the God of her 
Fathers would give him strength to defend her, innocent of the crime 
with which she stood charged. And then, if that may not be, the 
virgins of her people were to mourn for her — but the love of life is 
apparent and there is recurrence to the suggestion that a rescuer 
might be found and her father is cautioned to look ''now at what 
thou doest." And again comes the hope that if she and Ivanhoe 

319 



are to be forever parted, it may be he who will save her life as she 
saved his. And twice thereafter there is reference to Wilfred, the 
son of Cedric, with not a word amiss and not a phrase that needs 
amendment ... It is womanly, heroic and rhetorical throughout. 
Rebecca knew that none but her father would bear the message to 
Ivan hoe. She knew that her father would not have been the 
messenger, even for the saving of her life if he for one short 
moment thought Rebecca loved Ivanhoe. Had there been even 
the slightest intimation of her sincere and pathetic affection 
for him apparent in the letter. Rebecca knew that Isaac, her 
father, would have seen her in her grave mourning for her, 
but rejoicing that death had prevented the possibility of the 
marriage of the son of the Gentile with the daughter of Israel. 
And the letter had its quick effect and the lists of Templestowe 
were filled. 'The trumpets sounded and the knights charged 
each other in full acreer.'' The wearied horse of Ivanhoe fell and 
Ivanhoe with it, but ''although the spear of Ivanhoe did but in com- 
parison touch the shield of Bois-Guilbert, that champion, to the 
astonishment of all who beheld it, reeled in his saddle, lost his stirrups 
and fell in the lists." It was the triumph of innocence and of virtue 
over guilt and when Ivanhoe placed his sword's point at' Bois- 
Guilbert's breast and received no answer to his demand that his 
fallen enemy should yield, the Grand Master let fall the truth: 
"Slay him not. Sir Knight," cried Grand Master, "unshriven and 
unabsolved — kill not body and soul! We allow him vanquished," 
and looking up, the Grand Master said: "This is, indeed the judg- 
ment of God. Fiat voluntas tua." 
Then again comes Rebecca. 

"Let us go," he said, "my dear daughter, my recovered treasure, 
let us go and throw ourselves at the feet of the good youth." 

"Not so," said Rebecca. "0, no-no-no — I must not at this 
moment dare to speak to him. Alas! I should say more than — ■ 
No, my father, let us instantly leave this evil place." 

"And Isaac urges and Rebecca pleads, with Isaac remaining in- 
sistent until, even in her short agony, Rebecca appeals to which she 
knew would appeal tocher father. 

"But thou seest, dear Father, that King Richard is in presence 
and that — " 

"True, my best, my wisest Rebecca! Let us hence — let us hence! 
Money he will lack, for he has just returned from Palestine and, as 
they say, from prison, and pretext for exacting it, should he need 
any, may arise out of my simple traffic with his brother John. 
Away! Let us hence!" 

And rhetoretical and strong it is! Filled with gratitude to 

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Ivanhoe for his chivalrous rescue of his daughter, Isaac insisted on 
Rebecca thanking her preserver — and how natural and fitting it 
would have been for the circumstances. Rebecca loved Ivanhoe, 
but had not admitted the fact even to herself until his gallant 
charge in the lists of Templestowe and his demand that Bois-Guil- 
bert should yield. Isaac knew it not but with the gratitude of a 
father persisted in his determination that he and Rebecca should 
throw themselves at the feet of Ivanhoe. ''Nay but," said Isaac, 
insisting, ''they will deem us more thankless than mere dogs," and 
Rebecca's answer that Richard was there roused up in Isaac another 
feeling, not supreme, not interfering with his gratitude nor with his 
love for Rebecca, not with his unselfish joy over her deliverance — 
the feeling of Mammonism. And Rebecca, awaiting until the mar- 
riage of Ivanhoe and Rowena gives thanks to Rowena, knowing 
they would be conveyed word for word to Ivanhoe as they were. 
Effectiveness of the use of words and phrases; effectivesness of the 
right use of the art of rhetoric could not be more effectively exhibited 
or illustrated, than Scott exhibits and illustrates them in the letter 
of Rebecca to her father; in the hastening of Ivanhoe to the lists 
of Templestowe; in the vanquishing of Bois-Guilbert; in the 
admission of the Grand Master; in the heart-breaking knowledge 
of Rebecca that she would have betrayed her love for Ivanhoe had 
she returned to thank him, all culminating, in the truest sense of the 
word, in the knowledge Rebecca had of the devotion of her race, 
and, in the strongest degree in her father, Isaac of York, and in her 
right use of the right argument in few, but most effective words not 
only turning away all thoughts of the payment of the debt of grati- 
tude he owed Ivanhoe, but even urging Rebecca to greater haste 
in escaping from the lists. 

There are comparisons between the depiction of scenes in Ivanhoe 
by Scott and in a Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. Scott depicted 
scenes and incidents of a great romance. His characters were taken 
from history or very many of them, with Cedric, the Saxon, with 
Gurth and Wamba and the Prior of Jorvaux, invented by Scott — 
the first for the portrayal of the Saxon and the born thralls of the 
Saxon and the Prior for the purpose Scott always had in mind — 
giving the worst possible characters to the priests and prelates of the 
Church. Richard was an historical character and Scott has por- 
trayed him rightly — ^not alone as Richard the Lion-hearted, but as 
the Black Knight, the guest of Robin Hood and of Friar Tuck. The 
Templars were historical — and Scott shows his hatred to the Church, 
again, in his bitter portrayals of their membership — with facts 
going far to uphold him in his arraignment of their fall from the 
original objects of their establishment and their recognition by the 

321 



Church. But what of it all? In which of the two books are the 
scenes more perfectly depicted and why? 

Scott was writing a romance and had the characters at his com- 
mand and of a period so remote that he could take even greater 
liberties than are allowed to writers of events of contemporaneous 
history. He had a definite object in view, no doubt — the final 
passing of the Saxon, the fixed rule of the Norman, the passing of 
allegiance by Ivanhoe from the rule of the Saxon to allegiance to 
the Norman, angering his father Cedric to the utmost with even 
Cedric yielding, at last, a grumbling allegiance to the facts of the 
situation as it then was in England, but ever retaining his Saxonism, 
with Ivanhoe recognizing the inevitable and acting accordingly. 
Scott depicted the events, so to call them, of a romance. In a 
Tale of Two Cities Dickens depicted concrete facts. In Ivanhoe 
Scott seems to depend more on his characters and their stronger 
or weaker individualities or personalities, and it was impossible, 
therefore, for him to depict either characters or events as clearly 
and as forcibly as Dickens did in the tragedy of, practically, his 
own day and time as he gives it in his Tale of Two Cities. 

Each was a master; each was a genius, the one was stately, 
always classic and each possessed the faculty of description in a 
marvelous degree. There is a strain of romance in the Tale of 
Two Cities, but it is wholly subordinate. There is a strain of ro- 
mance in Ivanhoe and it could not be otherwise, for Scott was a 
writer gifted with the art of holding fast his hearers after he threw 
away his tedious pen of introductions and of prefatory remarks 
and so on. Dickens plunged directly into his great work, its events, 
its incidents and its characters. The romance in Ivanhoe is per- 
sistent. The romance in a Tale of Two Cities — the love of Evre- 
monde and Lucie — was used largely to illustrate the self-sacrifice, 
the unselfishness and the devotedness of Sidney Carton. The 
scenes in a Tale of Two Cities were depicted with greater clearness 
and force by Dickens than the scenes and incidents in Ivanhoe 
depicted by Scott. 




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